‘Broken atmospheres and clashes of sensation’

Once a week I host a writer who uses music as part of their creative environment – perhaps to connect with a character, populate a mysterious place, or hold  a moment still to explore its depths. This week’s post is by editor, journalist and crime novelist JJ Marsh @JJMarsh1

Soundtrack by Octave One, Schubert, InGrid, Taxi, Biosphere, Photek, Jan Garbarek, Pedro Abrunhosa, Aphex Twin, Vaya con Dios

Music, along with artworks, act as ambient markers when I’m writing. I need silence to write, but return continually to certain images and tracks to remind me of my original intention. When I start a book, I know what mood I’m setting out to express. But while concentrating on the myriad elements of construction, the mood can get lost or forgotten. I also use music and art references to convey my concepts to the cover designer/artist. So these notes on music provide me with a trail to follow if I get lost.

Screenplay to novel

Octave One’s Bout to Blow buzzed around my brain for a long time. I planned a screenplay – Cognoscenti – furious morality overlaid by cynical pragmatism. The Wire meets Wall Street. Turns out it wasn’t a screenplay at all. It was Behind Closed Doors, my first European crime novel about corporate greed and rough justice.

I spent hours listening to Schubert while researching, and shared this fact with my paperback cover artist, James Lane. He used the second movement of Death and the Maiden to underscore the video he made of creating the oil painting.

Several characters in the book owe much to InGrid’s Tu es foutu. But this track represents the voice of the character who doesn’t have one.

Departures always a carry an emotional charge for me, and Taxi’s Campari Soda, with all its sense of loss, longing, change and optimism is that missing chapter between 37 and 38.

Lost book

I can’t find the book, but when I was a teen, I read a story about a child in the Scilly Isles seeing something she shouldn’t. The first three minutes of Biosphere’s The Things I Tell You triggered that memory and provoked the opening chapters of Raw Material. (If anyone can tell me the title of that book, I will send you a box of Kirschstengeli).

Broken atmospheres and clashes of sensations create an awkward, yet appealing kind of tension. There are two key plotlines in this book, and when returning to the subways of Finsbury Park, I listened to Photek’s Hidden Camera to remind me of the tone of the predator: something unresolved, compulsive and endless.

In the final edits, I listened to the first three minutes of Jan Garberek’s Twelve Moons, to harmonise the overall feeling.  Garbarek can tell stories, and this one contains a certain damaged purity. It also led me to the final title.

Passion and tragedy

With Tread Softly I wanted to echo the atmosphere of Federico Garcia Lorca’s plays. That combination of passion and tragedy and pride. Pedro Abrunhosa’s Tudo o que eu te dou was my tonal base line. There’s a painful tension in his voice, a love song as lament.

I had real problems nailing my villain. He needed to be cultured and sophisticated but capable of the worst cruelty. Then I heard Tree, by Aphex Twin. The scariest kind of psychopathy. Insanity on a leash. Enter Arturo de Aguirre.

One of the subplots contains an inevitable emotional car crash. A half-remembered song expressed that sense of time running out, so I spent ages trying to find it. When I did, it was so perfect, it gave me the shivers. Vaya Con Dios – Heading for a Fall. And I fell in love with Dani Klein’s voice all over again

Jill grew up in Wales, Africa and the Middle East, where her curiosity for culture took root and triggered an urge to write. She has worked as an actor, teacher, director, editor, journalist and cultural trainer all over Europe. Now based in Switzerland, Jill is a founder member of author collective Triskele Books, part of the Nuance Words project and a regular columnist for Words with JAM magazine. She lives with her husband and three dogs, and in an attic overlooking a cemetery, she writes. Her novels are Behind Closed Doors, Raw Material and Tread Softly. Find Jill’s detective character Beatrice Stubbs on Facebook, or find Jill’s Amazon page, or connect with her on Twitter @JJmarsh1.

GIVEAWAY You could win a copy of one of Jill’s novels if you comment here – extra entries if you tweet or otherwise share the post. Don’t forget to let me know if you have shared on other networks and how many there are. AND don’t forget those Kirschstengeli. That book is in somebody’s reading backlist somewhere…