Double success for Bignor Park-based composer Ned Bigham

Ned was recently nominated for an Ivor Novello Award (Ivors Classical) for a commission for the West Sussex Youth Orchestra’s 60th anniversary. Now, under the name Anti Atlas, alongside Radiohead & Supergrass manager Chris Hufford, he has released the new EP codachrome, following on from their Fractals Ep released last year.

codachrome pairs vocal and instrumental versions and includes new single Crush/Islands.

As Ned says, Crush features the sensuous and textural vocals of Fred Lessore once again and continues Anti Atlas’s obsession with lush orchestral soundscapes balanced with gentle RnB beats. Also included on the Ep are the two recent singles, also featuring Fred Lessore and their instrumental counterparts: My Way/Sika and Lay of the Land/Lakes.

The original Anti Atlas project was born out of experimenting with orchestral samples to create exotic chill-out music. They released albums to critical acclaim—Between Voices (Sunday Times Album of the Week) and Future Nostalgia.

“It’s about using orchestral sounds and RnB beats to create a panoramic soundscape. We usually release vocal versions and instrumental versions and it has got a psychedelic twist to it as well. You will see that when you hear the lyrics and see the artwork. With the instrumental versions the point is that the music can stand on its own and if you want a more relaxed feel to the music then the instrumental versions do create that atmosphere.

“codachrome is about a technicolour musical world that the listener can lose themselves in. It is about having quite a variety, a panoply of different musical experiences and different sounds, from the romantic composers like Ravel and Debussy to early 20th-century British composers. We often take samples from recordings that are out of copyright and sample them along with my own compositional work. It is like a smorgasbord of different musical borrowings and new compositions.

“It is a full orchestra and sometimes we will lay out orchestras on top of each other. Sometimes you can layer two or three orchestras at the same time. One orchestra could be woodwind playing some Ravel and on top of that you might have a string section playing a Russian composer and then on top of that you might have my own compositions for brass. You put it all together and you come up with something new and something hopefully quite original. And there are 1960s guitars and some classical and some psychedelic effects as well.”

As for the Ivor Novello Award (Ivors Classical), it came for a commission Ned took on for the West Sussex Youth Orchestra’s 60th anniversary: “That was really exciting. It was a commission from West Sussex Music to celebrate the 60th anniversary of West Sussex Youth Orchestra and it was performed in Chichester Cathedral in 2022 as part of the Festival of Chichester and it was lovely to have the piece recognised. It was such a worthwhile experience.”

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