Name: Sebastian Reynolds

Nationality: British

Occupation: Composer, producer

Current Release: Sebastian Reynolds's Canary is out via Pindrop.

If you enjoyed this interview with Sebastian Reynolds and would like to keep up to date with his work, visit his official website. He is also on Instagram, Facebook, Soundcloud, and twitter.

To keep reading, we recommend our earlier 15 Questions Interview with Sebastian Reynolds and his thoughts on his creative process.



Among other factors, behind Canary is the experience of your son Noah being born asleep. You ended up responding to this by creating music. Before that, though, has music or other forms of art offered you concrete solace in the face of death or other very difficult phases in your life?

Music has frequently provided a refuge for me. Both in terms of listening and experiencing as well as making.

That sense of community, connection, the feeling that others are expressing emotions that you can relate to, it is intrinsic to how our species tries to cope adaptively with the tragic realities of life.

The press release states that the title is “symbolic for […] the [mind's] failure to perceive threats, and the fact that those threats can come from one's own psychological systems designed for self-preservation.” I wasn't quite sure I understood this – do you feel that perhaps there are areas where we, as human beings, can not but commit certain actions because we were designed that way?

It seems likely that JFK was killed by members of the CIA. The CIA were supposed to be protecting him.

In our own brains we have systems in place that are designed to perceive threats to us, but sometimes these systems misfire in ways that can end up being self-destructive, either by missing threats altogether, or by being over sensitive to threats that aren't serious or aren't really there.

How does one tell the difference between these two ends of the spectrum?

You mention Buddhism, Out of Body experiences, Carl Jung as topics which interest you. What connects them in terms of your interests and what were some of the most important insights you've gained from spending time with these concepts?

Out of a long-term interest in Buddhist meditation I've been interested in trying to explore and make sense of the nature of consciousness and conscious awareness, and asking some of the big questions about what happens to us when we die, do we have a soul? I've had some fascinating and tremendously powerful experiences through meditation, but it's hard to really express them through words, which is why I make music!

Jung is interesting both in terms of how he engages with these big, spiritual and mystical questions but also I found his theory of the archetypes and spiritual self-development in very mundane terms fascinating. Better understanding the workings of one's own mind in terms of typical patterns of thought and behaviour between oneself and one's family members and loved ones has helped to make my life a more fulfilling and functional experience.

One always has difficulties with family members, but if you understand the sub-conscious drives at play you can be slightly less caught up in the ups and downs!

The press release also mentions the death of your mother. This, and your son being born asleep are very different, yet they appear in the same context … How do these absences relate for you personally?

I think it brought home something of the fundamentally tragic nature of our lives. What was more tragic, my mother dying in her early 60s, never experiencing retirement etc etc, or Noah never experiencing life outside of the womb?

The tragedy of death is a spectrum in some ways, but in other ways there is a fundamental tragedy to all life ending.

What was the process of moving from grief to transcendence like?

What I meant by that is how liberating it has been to try and use these experiences as catalysts for growth and to try and be the best possible version of myself, whatever it takes.

Grief can so easily be, in one way or another, a death sentence, but it can also be the spark that lights the fire of self-development. What better tribute can there be to those that have gone than to work on your weaknesses and do what you can to be your best self?

One aspect mentioned in the press release is that the turmoil eventually resulted in relief, peace and freedom. When and how does it change from being a realisation into a consolation – can it ever be?

I think that when you feel like you've been through truly terrible, painful experiences but come out the other side stronger you feel peace and stability that you never knew possible.

In a very mundane way if you run a really hard race but make it to the end the feeling at the finish really is remarkable.

Would you say that the music on Canary was the result of a decision to deal with the events – or did you, at some point, notice that your experiences were finding their way into your music?

I think I was quite conscious about wanting to express something of the nature of these experiences even while I was living through it all.

There's a lot of detail that has become clearer in hindsight, but I definitely did want to make some work out of solidarity for all us humans living through the inevitable tragic elements of being.

What you were able to express through music but not through words or anything else? Was it a feeling of working through the emotions – of allowing something to be released - until you were able to verbalise them?

Yes absolutely, I don't think I can put into words the core emotional experiences that I had, which is why I compose music not poetry or prose!

Having said that, I do like using vocal samples in my music, but they tend to be quite sparse and abstract, they hopefully help to gesture in the direction of what I'm trying to explore in a track, rather than laying any particular idea or concept out in too much detail.

What was the creative process for the album like?

I have a studio set up at home where I have my keyboards, drum machines etc, and I have a vast archive of sounds and samples that I can draw from.

For example, for the track “Shortest Day” I had an improvisation of takes of me playing piano, saxophone and atmospherics in my old family home from many years ago. I somehow remembered about it out of the blue and dug out the session and did essentially a remix of it.



I cut up the parts and turned it from a free improvisation into a tight, electronic soundscape. There's something magical about having material that is very old, that connects back to a lost time in your life, that you can reconnect with. The depth and meaning is of course lost on the listeners, but hopefully it helps to inspire me and to create certain atmospheres and feelings.

Similarly, some of the keyboards, drum machines and effects units I have had for over 20 years, and in some cases I hadn't used for a very long time. So again it helps to imbibe the tracks with nostalgia and yearning, which are very much components of grief and loss.  

You worked with a variety of collaborators on Canary. From your conversations with them, did they sense in the sounds and compositions what lay underneath?

For some of the tracks we did discuss some of the themes or topics, at least to a degree, but sometimes it's not necessary, sometimes it's better for other musicians to just respond to the sounds that are there and how they make them feel. It's possible to over think it if you get too into the concept sometimes.

A lot of the collaboration was done remotely, with me sending tracks out and the players sending takes back but with the Canary title track myself, Rachel Coombes the clarinetist and Greig Stewart the drummer were in Mike's Safehouse studios in Oxford together. I had the synth part from years ago and Greig and Rachel took turns to improvise over the top and we made it very quickly.

I would love to do more in studio work with my musicians in the future.

Many artists in similar situations will often describe the writing and recording process as “therapeutic.” It's not a word found in the notes to this album. In which way and to what degree was it “healing” - if at all?

It was certainly healing and very cathartic, the act of externalising one’s internal landscape, it helps you to understand how certain feelings or emotions relate to one’s experiences.

When you listen to the music today, with some hindsight, what do you hear?

I'm proud that I have managed to capture a sense of my experiences and I hope that it brings hope and inspiration for others going through similar times in their lives.

The death of a loved one can make us acutely aware of our own mortality. What was this like for you and how did you deal with it? What's your own view on life and what happens when it ends?

Unfortunately, I've experienced a few other losses earlier in life, so I've spent a long time meditating on the nature of our being and what happens when we pass away.

I'm quite interested in the Buddhist notion that we are bound to existence by our craving for it and that we pass unconsciously from life to life, and the way to escape this cycle of rebirth (Saṃsāra) is to realise that this is the case, and to overcome craving.

You state that “The path to transcendence takes in extreme pain, facing one's fears, conflict both internal and external and the contemplation of the mind and body in these extreme states, as well as under the influence of various substances and deep in meditation. The question is, what remains?” How would you answer that question right now?

What remains beyond our craving for existence?