Although his songs may seem simple, the reflection behind them is not at all. The interest that Nick Mulvey places in the background and the ties that unite the different types of music in the world becomes a dense network of knowledge that the Cambridge musician transforms, guitar in hand, into pop background melodies with hidden calls to the spiritual unity of men as a solution to the great problems that grip us. Because as he says in Star Nation, “The time of the lone wolf is over.” This Sunday he will bring his message to the Músiques Disperses de Lleida festival (Café del Teatre, 8 p.m.)
What does the name of your new album, New Mythology, mean?
I think ideas are the most powerful, and music is a powerful vessel for ideas. The songs on New Mythology (new mythology) are full of ideas that are somehow new to our mainstream culture, although the album could also be called New Ancient Mythologies (old new mythologies) because these ideas are not original. The music is the original, while the ideas are perennial.
What ideas do you raise on the record?
It is about a deeper knowledge of oneself, understanding our place on the planet from a different perspective where humanity is not separate from the rest, is not superior, but is an intrinsic part of the planet connected by our shared being. The idea of ??this shared being runs through the entire album: my personality, my body, my position in society is different from yours, of course. And of course it is different from that of an animal, of a different species, but our being is shared, and this is revolutionary for popular culture, mainstream culture.
You have studied music in Cuba and Ethnomusicology in London. Has this knowledge influenced you in any way?
All my life I have loved music from everywhere and from all eras, I listen to electronic music, dance, techno and also hip hop, but I also love the ceremonial music of Central Asia and the folk and guttural chant of the Tuan culture. from Mongolian. I have found good music in most places, that is why I went to Cuba to study music, in the same way that I am interested in the teachings of the East that came through the popular culture of the sixties and seventies, as well as the teachings of the indigenous in America, such as the Hopi people of Arizona. In my way of understanding life, all these things have a link, like the teachings of the mind and the void of the East and the teachings of the earth and the incarnation.
All these musics and their learning are united
We live in a time when the influence of indigenous America and indigenous cultures is comparable to the influence of India and the Orient in the 1960s. I feel that the indigenous wisdom and teachings of their time are having a similar effect on global culture. So I’m receptive to these things, and they’re in my music. I believe that the history of human culture is the same no matter how far back you go.
How do you define your music?
I define my songs as protection songs, I love writing songs, but I also love repetitive patterns, instrumental music. There is a definition that interests me that I found in 2016 after coming back from North Dakota, from a place called Standing Rock. The governor supported the construction of an oil pipeline through a sacred land for the natives, it was the umpteenth desecration of the land, of the animals and of the indigenous culture. There was a confrontation between the police and the protesters, and at the forefront of the protest were the indigenous peoples. They made this definition, they affirmed that they were not protesting, but protecting. Protesting contains the same duality, the same division of us against them, which entails an intrinsic violence.
And they say we don’t, we also want the police on the other side. He is a father, he is a football fan, he is many things and I am not his enemy, but I will protect the sacred, I will protect the land. As a composer he raised this idea of ??protection against protest. We have protest songs by musicians like Bob Dylan, compared to mine are songs of protection. I love life, I have a deep reverence for life, and my songs celebrate it.
That’s why he performed at the 2021 Glasgow climate summit
Yes, climate change and the environment are very important issues, but the environment is not separated from social injustice, racism or sexism, as if they were all the same. I’m in love with the world, so I sing about the things I love.
Going back to your music, what are you going to play next week in Lleida?
I’m going to be performing songs from my new album, New Mythology, and some old songs. I will perform with my friend Toti Arimany (Dusminguet, La troba Kung fu), an incredible sonic artist who will be with me on stage with a very nice formula. I will sing with my acoustic guitar while Toti accompanies this music with his electronic sound. It comes naturally to me because I grew up with hip hop and DJ culture, and Leonard Cohen as a songwriter as well. I grew up in the sound system culture, just like Cohen.
In your previous band, Portico Quartet, you played the hang, a Tibetan instrument, have you thought about going back to this kind of sound?
They are two very different sounds, at least in appearance, but underneath, in their essence and I love the patterns, I study them, I play with them, and the hang is very good for the patterns, they are very instinctive. For the last 10 years I have always started with patterns on the guitar, and then used them as a vehicle for a song. In 2017 Brian Eno recommended that he stop using patterns as a guide for songs and let them flow, which is what he did in Portico Quartet. I worked like this until 2022, when I decided that I wanted to make patterns. At the end of last year I entered the studio along with three other musicians and a dozen patterns, and in two days we recorded a new album of patterns only.
