Covid-19 lockdown voices inspire music composer’s new EP

Conversations in a care home during the Covid-19 pandemic have inspired a newly-released work by a Northern Ireland composer exploring the “fragile beauty” of every day life.

Rory Friers, known for his film scores as well as being a guitarist and songwriter in rock band And So I Watch You from Afar, spent six months with residents and staff of Glendun Care Home in Cushendun in 2022.

He also was inspired by the warmth and tenderness shown between a mum and her new baby.

His new project captured moments of laughter, conversations and silence using handheld recording devices.

They became the foundation for the ambient compositions featured in his new EP entitled Home.

Home includes two tracks, both string and guitar compositions based around recordings of real-life moments.

The first stage, Home I, emerged from a recording made in a house in Ballycastle, close to where Friers grew up, where a young mother and her newborn child were living through the first months of the Covid-19 lockdown.

Their voices, breaths and presence were captured and Friers composed around them in an attempt to create the maternal environment and music that feels “tender, resilient and deeply protective”.

“I always liked creating music that kind of leant into or built a kind of environment for people to have a bit of escapism. I never was really drawn to very prescriptive music or songs,” Friers added.

The second part, Home II, took place at Glendun care home during the later stages of the pandemic.

Over six months, he built relationships and captured meaningful moments that inspired his final composition.

“I’d go up there once a week and hang out with residents and staff, and capture a lot of conversations,” Friers shared.

Friers collaborated with the production company Dumb World as part of a project called Constellations of Noise, where artists worked with community groups, which connected him with Glendun care home.

Josie McCambridge was one resident at the care home who was ‘born and bred’ in Cushendun.

Before a care facility, Glendun Care Home was a bar where Josie used to perform as a singer and guitar player every Saturday.

“Josie sat in the same chair in the same room every time I visited, he was a quiet man but great craic once you got chatting with him,” said Friers.

Friers said Josie would sing songs for him, prompting him to quickly grab a recording device to capture what he was singing.

Josie sang a song about a young man who leaves his hometown of Ballycastle to go and find riches in America, which he later regrets.

“There was just something really moving, the whole room kind of stood still and the staff who presumably heard Josie sing all the time knew he had a special gift for singing these songs,” he said.

Friers rushed home, hoping that it might be close to enough in tuning so that he could compose music around it.

Unfamiliar with the song that Josie played for him, Friers re-imagined the song to evoke the performance of Josie and the setting they were in.

“Lo and behold, it was pitch perfect, he was singing completely unaccompanied just acapella, so it was kind of an incredible feat for anyone to be able to do that in the first place.”