LISTEN: David Holmes previews his new mix album

Belfast producer supreme David Holmes has released a sampler of his Late Night Tales mix, which drops on October 21 and includes exclusive tracks that find him collaborating with Ramshackle Crow's Steve Jones, Jon Hopkins and Stephen Rea who help him soundtrack an excerpt from Seamus Heaney’s AENEID BOOK VI – Elsewhere Anchises, Jeff Bridges, Keefus Ciancia and BP Fallon who joins him for the tribute paying ‘Henry McCullough’.
“I walk a lot,” Holmer reflects. “It’s amazing for listening to music: your phone or your emails aren’t going and you’re just in the forest listening to music. It’s so intimate. Anyway, I was listening to the KLF’s Chill Out album, which still sounds amazing, but it triggered an idea with concrete sounds through travelling and movement. And one of the things I was trying to do was to use this idea not just break up the moods but also as a metaphor for moving through life and arriving in different destinations or arriving at different stages in different parts of your life. Memory, Love, Living, Family, Friendship, Healing, Death and The Afterworld are some of the themes I wanted to explore within this record. Although these strong themes and tracks are personal to me, I also wanted it to be a great listen that was unpredictable yet had a seamless flow - a journey that was personal to me yet to the listener a great compilation of music that they may or may not have heard before. I hope I’ve succeeded in the later.”
Playing guitar on ‘Henry McCullough’ is a certain N. Gallagher whose new album Holmes is producing.
“I received a phone call from BP Fallon the day before Henry McCullough’s funeral,” Holmer explains. "He was heart broken having lost his dear friend and asked could he stay at mine after he returned from the funeral. After I picked him up from the train station he asked me if he returned early enough could we record something. I started working on the music that day and then I had an idea which was to record something about Henry and their relationship. When BP returned that evening I sat him down in front of the microphone and this happened in one take! We both knew we captured a very special moment that couldn’t have been created at any other moment - magic”.
Of that Jon Hopkins and Stephen Rea hook-up, David adds: "Before Jon became the world famous and respected composer he is today I had the privilege of doing some sessions with him. This is something that we started eight or nine years ago and the original idea was less than 90 seconds long. I always loved the feeling it gave me so I decided to develop it for this album as I felt it fitted into what I was trying to say. The words came last and this extract was shown to me by my friend and one of Belfast’s finest actors Lalor Roddy because he thought it had a lot in common with a short film I directed called I AM HERE which deals with family and reconnection in the after world. It comes from a book called AENEID VI which was the last work Seamus Heaney translated before he passed which made it even more special as I consider this to be a very Northern Irish themed album. When I first read it I was stunned by the similarities and wrote a letter to Mick Heaney – Seamus’ Heaney’s - asking for permission. The Heaney Family gave me permission, which I am forever grateful for and the next step was securing the voice of another Northern Irish great, Stephen Rea. A huge thank you to Stephen and the Heaney family for helping me make this happen. It was a perfect way to finish this album. "