Guy Sigsworth

Guy Sigsworth
Background information
Instruments Harpsichord, Clavichord, Celesta, Guitar
Associated acts Diana Vickers,[1] Imogen Heap, Frou Frou, Björk, Alanis Morissette, Seal, Britney Spears, Imogen Heap, Kate Havnevik

Guy Sigsworth is a British composer, producer and songwriter. During his career he has worked with many artists, including Seal, Björk, Goldie, Madonna, Britney Spears, Kate Havnevik, Imogen Heap, Bebel Gilberto, Mozez, David Sylvian, Alanis Morissette, Eric Whitacre and Alison Moyet. He has also collaborated with many celebrated instrumental musicians, including Talvin Singh, Jon Hassell and Lester Bowie. He was previously a member of the band Frou Frou together with Imogen Heap.[2]

Early Musical Experiences

Sigsworth grew up in Ilkley, West Yorkshire, where he developed a youthful passion for early music, especially the 14th-century composer Guillaume de Machaut. His earliest musical heroes were the multi-instrumentalist David Munrow and the maverick field-recordist and composer David Fanshawe. He was a pupil at Leeds Grammar School in the 1970s, where he and his band performed a memorable version of Red House which ended prematurely after he cut his hand rather badly on a cymbal. He studied the harpsichord, first at summer schools at the Casa de Mateus in Portugal, and later for a year at the Utrechts Conservatorium in the Netherlands. He toured Europe playing harpsichord for the European Union Baroque Orchestra.

Sigsworth has worked with various engineers and programmers of distinction. During the late 1990s he worked with Damian Taylor, who has since engineered, programmed and performed live with Björk; in the early 2000s he worked with Sean McGhee who has since produced Temposhark; and most recently he has worked extensively with Andy Page, who has previously worked with Sasha, BT and Harry Gregson-Williams.

Seal

Returning to the UK he moved to London and made a sudden change of direction. He became fascinated with the burgeoning Acid House sound, and immediately bought a Roland sampler and an Atari computer. He met Seal, co-writing four songs on Seal's debut album: "Crazy", "The Beginning", "Wild" and "Violet", plus the B-side, "Sparkle". The album's producer, Trevor Horn, was the first pop record producer Sigsworth had ever met.

Bomb the Bass / Hector Zazou

Tim Simenon was also involved in work on Seal's song "Crazy", and Sigsworth soon became part of the regular production team of Simenon's band, Bomb The Bass, co-writing the UK No. 7 hit single "Winter in July". He also worked with Simenon on Hector Zazou's 1992 album Sahara Blue, performing alongside the celebrated French actor Gérard Depardieu on the track, "I'll Strangle You". Sigsworth subsequently contributed to Zazou's 1994 album Songs From The Cold Seas accompanying Björk.

Talvin Singh

While working on sessions for Japanese drummer/producer Gota Yashiki, Sigsworth met the virtuoso tabla player Talvin Singh. He subsequently played synthesizer and harpsichord for Singh's live shows, and later played and contributed remixes on Singh's debut album, OK.

It’s 5 to 12 / Survival Game

Guy Sigsworth produced early 1993 the benefit Song „Survival Game" for the relief organization "Menschen für Menschen" in Ethiopia, founded by the actor Karlheinz Böhm. The song was written by Mike Turtle and Dean Frederick. The Single Survival Game was 1995 worldwide released by BMG Ariola / Coconut Records. The remixes made by Paul Dakeyne hit the Charts in South America and Europe. The It’s 5 to 12 / Survival Game project was originally initiated by the Swiss Media Manager Ditti Brook.

Björk

It was through Singh that Sigsworth met Björk, becoming keyboard player, and later music director, of her live band for two albums. Sigsworth brought his early music sensibility to Björk's live performances and recordings, adding harpsichord, clavichord, regal and positive organ accompaniments to her music. Sigsworth's harpsichord can be heard on the song "Cover Me" from Post; clavichord on the song "All Is Full of Love"; and organ on the song "Unravel" from Homogenic. "Unravel" was Sigsworth's first co-written song with Björk. Sigsworth also played celesta on Björk's cover of Joni Mitchell's "The Boho Dance"; the celesta later became a feature on both Dancer in the Dark (where he also contributed a string arrangement) and Vespertine, on which he co-wrote "Hidden Place", "An Echo, A Stain", "Sun in My Mouth" and "Harm of Will".

Imogen Heap

Sigsworth first met Imogen Heap in 1996 after a friend played him a demo of her song "Come Here Boy". He immediately fell in love with her distinctive voice. He was also amazed to hear that she shared his idiosyncratic love of melodies featuring wide, angular intervals - especially major 7ths and minor 9ths - which are not so common in pop. They wrote two songs together, "Getting Scared" and "Airplane", which Sigsworth produced for her debut album, I Megaphone. In return, Heap sang backing vocals on Sigsworth's band project with Alexander Nilere, Acacia.

G:MT

In 1999 Sigsworth scored the movie G:MT - Greenwich Mean Time, which included musical contributions from Imogen Heap, Talvin Singh, and free jazz virtuoso Lester Bowie.

Madonna

Sigsworth co-produced the 1998 Mandalay album Empathy, which attracted the attention of Madonna. This in turn led to him co-writing the song "What It Feels Like for a Girl" with Madonna, for her 2000 album Music. Sigsworth also wrote the song "Nothing Fails" with Jem for Madonna's 2003 album American Life.


Frou Frou

Main article: Frou Frou (band)

One night in Mumbai, India, where he was producing a song for UK Asian artist Amar, Sigsworth composed a tune on his Yamaha QY20 pocket sequencer. As soon as he arrived back in London, he took it to Imogen Heap, and asked her to write a top line for it. It became "Flicks", their first song for what would become the Frou Frou album Details. Originally, there was no plan for Sigsworth and Heap to form a "proper" band. It was simply a matter of Sigsworth wanting to hear various song ideas properly realized. As Heap says: "Every month or so Guy would phone me up and say 'I've got a new song, would you come in and sing it?' and then before we knew it we'd already started the album."

As a linking concept for the emerging set of songs, Sigsworth suggested two ideas for the lyrics:

  1. They should feel like one half of a conversation rather than singer-on-a-soapbox declarations. Sigsworth's inspiration for this was the 1932 Jean Cocteau play La voix humaine (the entire text of the play consists of one side of a telephone conversation between a woman and her former lover. Her lover's words are never heard but are inferred from her words).
  2. The word "love" should be used as often as possible.

Sigsworth wrote the lyrics to the songs "Breathe In", "Only Got One" and "The Dumbing Down of Love", and co-wrote the lyrics to "Let Go", "It's Good To Be in Love", and "Psychobabble" on Details. Heap wrote the remaining lyrics, apart from "Maddening Shroud", which has lyrics by Alexander Nilere.

After eleven songs had been completed, Heap and Sigsworth set about finding a name for their collaborative effort. Sigsworth, a fan of all things French, came up with "Frou Frou", which Heap loved. The name comes from Rimbaud's 1870 poem "Ma Bohème", and is a French onomatopoeic word originally meaning the swishing noise made by skirts on dancing women. The album title, "Details", was a reference to the way the songs were constructed in the studio, by layering momentary details of sounds and performances to create a web of sound.

The album was released in 2002 on Universal Records. It was critically acclaimed, but did not achieve mass sales. "Breathe In" was released as the first single internationally, and reached number two on the Italian radio airplay charts, but follow up singles, "Must Be Dreaming" and "It's Good To Be in Love" were never commercially released in the UK. A video was also made for "The Dumbing Down of Love", directed by Joel Peissig (who later directed Heap's solo video, "Hide and Seek"). After touring the record extensively across the United States, where the duo had established a cult fan base, Frou Frou disbanded in 2003.

Heap and Sigsworth temporarily reformed Frou Frou to record a cover version of "Holding Out for a Hero", originally recorded by Bonnie Tyler, for the Shrek 2 soundtrack. The duo were approached by the music director of the film, who had been a fan of their album. The resulting track is played during the end credits of the film. Frou Frou also experienced a resurgence in popularity in 2004, when Scrubs star, Zach Braff chose album track "Let Go" for his independent film, Garden State. Other Frou Frou tracks have been included on television series, such as CSI: Crime Scene Investigation and Roswell High.

Despite disbanding only after one album (Heap and Sigsworth remain firm friends and meet regularly to catch up on things, but are currently focused on separate musical projects), Frou Frou's musical influence has remained widespread and both Heap and Sigsworth have seen an increase in interest in their projects post-collaboration.

After Frou Frou

Since Frou Frou, Sigsworth has returned to producing and co-writing for other artists.

Chelsia Chan

Sigsworth has remixed a song by Hong Kong-based actress and singer-songwriter Chelsia Chan. The songs' lyrics are a Mandarin-language adaptation of a poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

Bebel Gilberto

Sigsworth has contributed to two albums for Brazilian artist Bebel Gilberto, co-writing and producing the song Cada Beijo, and remixing the song O Caminho for her 2004 album Bebel Gilberto, and producing five songs for her 2007 album Momento.

Josh Groban

Sigsworth produced the vocals on Josh Groban's single "You Are Loved", taken from his 2006 album Awake.

Kate Havnevik

Sigsworth has worked extensively with Norwegian singer-songwriter Kate Havnevik. On her first album, Melankton (2006), Sigsworth co-wrote and produced four tracks, including the single, "Unlike Me" (which was featured in an a cappella version on the US hit TV show Grey's Anatomy, along with "Kaleidoscope"), "Not Fair", "Kaleidoscope" and "You Again." Another Sigsworth collaboration, entitled "So:Lo", was released on iTunes in late 2006, and appeared on the USA version of Melankton in 2007, and was also used in Grey's Anatomy. Sigsworth produced and co-wrote Kate's second album "YOU", released in 2012 with songs like "Halo", also used in Grey's Anatomy. Guy has recently been working on Havnevik's third album "&i" set to be released February 2015.

Juliet

Sigsworth co-wrote and produced the song "New Shoes" for Juliet's 2005 album Random Order.

Mirah

Sigsworth has remixed Mirah's song "La Familia" for her 2006 collection Joyride: Remixes.

Alanis Morissette

Sigsworth produced and co-wrote the music for the whole of Alanis Morissette's 2008 album Flavors of Entanglement and for some of the music on her 2012 album Havoc & Bright Lights. On Havoc, he both produced songs independently and co-produced them with Joe Chiccarelli and Alanis Morissette.

VersaEmerge

Sigsworth collaborated with VersaEmerge on the intro music for their song "Up There" from the album Fixed at Zero. It was mentioned in an interview that this was the first internet writing session either of the artists had taken part in, collaborating internationally via Skype.

Alison Moyet

Sigworth co-wrote and produced all the songs written and recorded for Alison Moyet's 2013 album The Minutes.

Mozez

Sigsworth co-wrote and produced two songs for former Zero 7 singer Mozez's 2005 album So Still: "Feel Free" and "Venus Rise". "Venus Rise" features a trumpet performance by Jon Hassell.

Robyn

Sigsworth produced two songs for Robyn's 2002 album Don't Stop The Music: "Should Have Known" and "Blow My Mind".

Britney Spears

Sigsworth has produced several tracks for Britney Spears. The first, "Everytime", appeared on her album, In the Zone. The song reached number one on the UK and Australian singles charts, and number fifteen on the US Billboard Hot 100. A track Imogen Heap and Sigsworth had worked on for the In the Zone album entitled "Over to You Now", was also released on the UK and Japanese bonus EP Chaotic of the DVD release of her reality TV show, Britney & Kevin: Chaotic, as well as on the Japanese "Someday (I Will Understand)" single. Sigsworth and Spears collaborated on the song "Someday (I Will Understand)". Sigsworth produced the song "Out from Under" and co-wrote and produced the song "My Baby", for Spears' 2008 album Circus.

Amy Studt

Sigsworth produced and co-wrote the song "My Paper Made Man" for Amy Studt's 2008 album My Paper Made Men.

Sugababes / Mutya Buena

Sigsworth worked on two albums for the UK group, Sugababes. He co-wrote and produced the song "Maya" for their 2003 album Three, and the song "Bruised" for their 2005 album Taller in More Ways,(co-written with Cathy Dennis). The song "Like The Weather", also co-written with Dennis, appears on the B-side of the song "Push The Button". Sigsworth also produced the song "Wonderful" for ex-Sugababe Mutya Buena's solo album Real Girl.

David Sylvian

Sigsworth radically remixed Sylvian's song Godman,from the 1999 album Dead Bees on a Cake.

Temposhark

Sigsworth produced the song "It's Better To Have Loved", and co-wrote and produced the song "Winter's Coming" for Temposhark's 2008 debut album The Invisible Line. Sigsworth's former engineer and collaborator Sean McGhee produced nine songs on the album.

Richard Walters

Sigsworth co-wrote and produced three songs for Richard Walters' 2006 Pilotlights EP: "Elephant in the Room", "Iceskaters", and "Garden Song".

Vanessa Williams

Sigsworth wrote a song called "Closer To You" with Bebel Gilberto and produced it for Vanessa Williams' eighth studio album The Real Thing.

Eric Whitacre

Sigsworth produced Eric Whitacre's song, Virtual Choir #4: Fly To Paradise, as well as doing the keyboard and electronica for the song.

Discography

References

  1. ↑ http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/music/news/a192494/diana-vickers-single-details-revealed.html
  2. ↑ Jeffries, Vincent. "Biography: Frou Frou". Allmusic. Retrieved 23 July 2010.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 10/12/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.