In 2018, freelance model-maker and animator Jim Parkyn recalled his experiences as Aardman Animations’ roving ambassador, which included sculpting characters for Wallace & Gromit, Shaun The Sheep and different productions – with a lot of the work finished because the group listened to prog.
“My first proggy report got here from junior faculty. Fairly than studying a ebook, we got Jeff Wayne’s The Warfare Of The Worlds on vinyl. It launched me to this type of musical panorama – and likewise this unbelievable art work. It acquired me into studying sci-fi and I turned a Star Warfares and Physician Who child.
That report adopted me round! There’s a gaggle of men I work with on many of the movies and The Warfare Of The Worlds is a soundtrack to the model-making at Aardman. It might be performed again and again on any new format because the years glided by.
One other formative childhood factor is seeing Labyrinth, aged about 10 or 11. It was an accessible route into David Bowie’s music, and a lifetime of inspiration from Jim Henson.
Once I’d left college and moved to Cardiff for my first job, I’d go to Bristol with my mates for nights out – a mega-city compared. We’d go to a rock pub referred to as The Hatchet Inn, a Tudor constructing with a large door coated in leather-based and studs. It hosted an odd mixture of rock music downstairs and spank events upstairs. But it surely was the one pub on the town that had Labyrinth on the jukebox and we’d upset the locals by bunging in a great deal of kilos to listen to it.
I’m from Warwick and spent all my childhood there. As quickly as I may get away from the vintage store and retirement properties, I assumed, “I’ll go someplace thrilling.” I hit the intense lights of college at Pontypridd as a substitute! It was one of many few locations within the nation that taught animation.
Learning movie, we watched issues like Blade Runner, and so many soundtracks could be by Tangerine Dream. Melrose is my favorite. I’m at all times drawn again to it. It’s nice to sculpt to, particularly if I’m as much as my eyeballs on deadline. It’s fairly pop for them, and calming too. The very last thing you need in the event you’re meticulously sculpting one thing is to have your nerves jangled.
My love of Focus grew from becoming a member of Aardman in 2000. The place is a bizarre melting pot of individuals, late teenagers to late 50s, doing issues from theatre design to stay motion, ceramics, jewelry. As a communal factor, music will both divide a room or carry it collectively. We had a clunky previous vinyl participant and folks would usher in odd data.
Felt Mountain continues my report assortment’s theme of storytelling and cinematography
Focus began off as us having a take heed to one thing from somebody’s dad’s assortment. What most individuals discovered amusing, I used to be drawn by. The yodelling was fairly distinctive however the remainder was entrancing, and behind everybody’s backs I began to analyze the broader world of Focus, and acquired into Focus 3. A good friend of mine discovered they had been enjoying in The Tunnels in Bristol so we went alongside. As a stay expertise, they had been phenomenal.
Goldfrapp’s Felt Mountain got here at a darkish time in my profession. We’d simply been made redundant from a movie referred to as The Tortoise And The Hare – we misplaced thousands and thousands of kilos in a cope with DreamWorks that collapsed. On the identical day, I used to be provided a job on the second Robbie The Reindeer movie. I went from working in an enormous manufacturing unit to being in a group of about six. My good friend Georgie advised me about Felt Mountain and it acquired performed solidly for about three weeks. It continues my report assortment’s theme of storytelling and cinematography. Alison Goldfrapp is mesmeric and her voice is gorgeous.
A few years later I used to be in a lull between tasks and I discovered myself in a Tesco Metro inspecting an advert trying to find cheesemakers to run a stall. It appeared a pure development from Wallace & Gromit to cheesemaking. I labored with a One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest ensemble of actors, businessmen and this wonderful man, Chris, who had labored with Peter Gabriel, then went to Mexico to make music and misplaced his thoughts there. He’d arrange the studio for Goldfrapp and we’d speak music whereas wrapping cheese.
I’ve so much to thank Ken Bruce [formerly of Radio 2] for. Someday he performed Richard Harris’ MacArthur Park. It was an extremely symphonic and self-indulgent tune, and I knew I had to purchase the album, A Tramp Shining. Harris is a superb actor however he has this fairly fragile singing voice. The entire report is a big celebration of music, and it’s the place the Pearl & Dean theme that we used to listen to within the cinema got here from.
I’ll take heed to Tales Of Thriller And Creativeness after I’m drawing – working at night time, it’s fairly cool to scare your self somewhat
I haven’t delved too deeply into the that means, however the imagery of a person having a strop about leaving his cake within the rain is sensible. There’s additionally puppetry, bitterness, sexism and wizardry. I drive my spouse mad with it.
A unique world altogether is John Betjeman’s Banana Blush. Betjeman, Philip Larkin and Roger McGough had been my gateway to poetry after I was a child. This was a punt in a charity store; as quickly as I heard it, I used to be misplaced to the jauntiness of it. I at all times liked The Wind In The Willows and it’s acquired that sense about it, plus there’s pantomime darkness.
My love of The Butterfly Ball began with the ebook – my spouse and I each gather kids’s books and tales. However we didn’t know till two years in the past that the vinyl existed. We noticed it in a charity store, introduced it dwelling and we had been fairly greatly surprised by the sound of it – it was wonderful, grandiose. The 70s and 80s was a good time for youngsters’s storytelling on this approach.
I’ve at all times been a large Edgar Allan Poe fan. However by way of Ken Bruce once more, and seeing one thing on TV about prog, I discovered The Alan Parsons Challenge’s Tales Of Thriller And Creativeness. It’s not an apparent approach of approaching Poe however it’s one thing I actually like. I’ll take heed to it after I’m drawing – working in my mill studio at night time, it’s fairly cool to scare your self somewhat.
Anna Meredith’s Varmints is a really latest discovery by way of Frank Skinner’s podcasts. He’s an area hero to me – nobody that attention-grabbing normally comes from West Brom! Nautilus is his walk-up music earlier than he comes on stage. It’s a neoclassical composition of thumping brass and big bass; loopy, orchestral pomp. It hooked me instantly and I’d like to see her stay.
I listened to Bowie all the best way from Labyrinth to Blackstar. I’ve acquired a love of ecclesiastical music – I joined the church after I was perhaps seven and have become a choir boy. I notably favored singing psalms, and there are various psalm-like, monk-like qualities right here. It was compelling and jogged my memory of music I’d liked as a baby.
What’s subsequent on the stereo? A stack of low cost vinyl from the charity store – the soundtrack to the subsequent creation.”
