My Musical Influences, Live Radio Interview.

My musical influences, live radio interview. Alchemystic speaks to Colne Radio 106.6 FM DJ Matthew young whereby he discusses his musical journey and influences. These include Mike Oldfield, Enigma, Deep forest, John Carpenter & Hans Zimmer. John also describes how his music is part of a spiritual journey and by listening to his music you can connect to your true self more easily. Featuring tracks "Soul Star (abbreviated)" and Pyrite (in full) all tracks are available to listen to on the Insight timer platform.

Transcript

I met up last week with local ambient musician John Jenkinson who releases tracks under the name Alchemistic.

Here's the first part of our chat.

I am with musician John Jenkinson to talk about his enthusiasm for music,

His inspiration and plans for his future output.

Hello John.

Hello Matthew.

Nice to see you.

Thanks for coming along to Cone Radio.

First,

Can you tell us how you got into music and what did you use to listen to growing up?

I got into music when I was 10 and we came across a guitar on the loft and my dad,

He knew a few chords and he showed me.

And I learned to play Spirit in the Sky and things like that.

Norman Greenbelt?

That's it,

Yeah.

From there,

When I then went to secondary school,

You know,

I started to learn formally and it kind of went from there.

Yeah,

Music became the thing that I was good at and actually got me through school if nothing else,

You know.

All right.

What were you listening to then?

I was thinking about this today actually and the first record I ever bought,

I had a choice.

It was either,

It's got to be by,

I think it's called that,

By Fairground Attraction.

All right.

Oh,

Perfect.

Perfect,

That's it,

Yeah.

Yeah,

Or it was Loads of Money by Mike Oldfield and I actually bought Loads of Money by Mike Oldfield.

So,

Mike Oldfield really was one of my earliest influences.

Well,

We're going to talk about your influences.

Let's go through a few now.

So,

Mike Oldfield's there.

Obviously,

For me,

The seminal album Jubiler Bells,

Which everyone my age bought.

He's an amazing musician,

Isn't he?

And other influences as I got older were Enigma,

Which you can probably hear in my music,

The sort of,

Call it new age influence if you like,

And Deep Forest.

Right,

Now you're going to have to tell me about Deep Forest.

Well,

Deep Forest,

They're another French band,

I believe,

And they're sort of heavily sampled and they're really into their beats.

Yeah,

They really were sort of breakthrough in as much as they took Inuit tribe sounds and put them into sort of dance beats or music you could move to,

At least,

And it had a real spiritual connection to it.

It really inspired me about the age 14,

15.

Oh,

Fantastic.

So,

Were you able to see bands like that live or was it just mainly recorded?

Those kinds of bands weren't really out there in those days and probably not so much these days either.

You know,

So it is very much niche.

You start to come off of the commercial music scene,

Don't you,

And go into the more sort of what I would call musician's music.

I mean,

Aside from this,

I played a guitar.

Musically on the guitar,

When I started to learn,

I was really sort of drawn to a classical composer called Leo Brau.

And he,

I found out just recently actually,

He was born in Cuba,

But I think he was noted as being a Brazilian composer when I was younger.

But his études simples,

They're basic pieces on the guitar and they've got the Latin rhythm and the modality and the modal sound,

Which really started to influence me and I felt a real connection to those pieces.

And that carried me through.

And then when I got to about 15,

16,

I really got into Aldi Miola and I listened to his Tour de Force album over and over and over and learned many of their tracks on there.

And so you can hear that sort of Hispanic,

Almost Latin influence in my guitar playing.

But you will hear the synth ambient sounds of Deep Forest and Enigma.

So what instruments do you play then?

You obviously start with the guitar.

Yeah,

I can play recorder,

Believe it or not.

I can play piano,

Keyboard.

I just start to warm my voice up again.

So I might be releasing a few vocal tracks in future.

Well,

What I like about your music,

John,

Is that it's slightly different from what else I play on the show,

Which sometimes tends to be very commercial.

But yours,

What I call music you listen to.

Yeah,

Behind my music really is the intention is to help people connect.

Not just to the music,

But to themselves.

Because,

As I say,

As we were saying earlier,

My journey with music hasn't been a straight path.

Whilst I've always been a musician,

I haven't always identified through that.

And it's been,

For long periods of time,

Often been on the back burner in my life.

Whilst I've done other things,

Like my own business,

Or whatever it is I need to do to pay the bills.

Where I am now,

With the spiritual work that I do,

The spirituality,

And bringing the creativity into that,

The music is about self-reflection.

And depending on where you're at,

If you are energy aware,

You feel like you connect to energies,

And you feel certain aspects of that,

The music will help you to do this.

Yeah,

So turn into your output then.

Roughly how many tracks have you produced,

And do you have any favourites?

Well,

Last year I actually produced 47 tracks.

I didn't release them all,

And it didn't feel like I was roughly doing one a week.

But it did happen in that way.

I do have some favourite tracks that I have produced.

The latest one being Soulstar,

Which you played on the show,

Which I'm really grateful for.

And I think I like that one,

Because one,

I like the melody that came to me,

Almost on the spot there,

As I was recording.

And it's a sort of a culmination of all the output last year,

Whereby I knew I needed to integrate my voice into my work.

And it's kind of a warm-up for that.

But,

You know,

There's a lot of music within that,

Where they could have almost been,

Like each line could have been a melody of its own.

And I think the culmination of that made it into quite a powerful expression of where I am,

And what I'm trying to achieve.

Another track I really like,

Which,

You know,

It's quite a slow piece,

And it's highly connected,

I believe,

Is Angelic Accords.

And initially I wanted to write a piece of music for some of the meditations I compose.

I really like Adagio for Strings by Sammy Barber.

Isn't that the most favourite piece of music ever produced?

I think it's the most popular classical piece.

That's right.

It's an absolute masterpiece,

Isn't it?

And being true to the creative that I am,

It has to be original music.

And,

You know,

You don't want to get caught up with royalties and licensing and what have you.

So I kind of set that intention about six months before writing Angelic Accords.

I didn't think about it,

And it felt like it was happening as it happened.

I played that into the recorded meditation,

And it took as long to compose as it did to play.

Right.

I played it through once,

And I think I added another half an hour of time with just brushing up on some of the harmonies and what have you.

But that's as close to a masterpiece I think I've got musically.

Another piece I like,

I've just released it,

Or I was releasing on the 17th,

It's called Pyrite.

You know,

I'm quite inspired by crystals and natural earth a lot in my music.

And Pyrite,

I like it because there's a slightly funky feel to it.

And that adds another dimension to the work.

So you may hear in there,

A friend of mine always says I sound like Hans Zimmer or John Carpenter.

And that's purely because I've probably watched so many movies,

You know.

But you can hear another dimension in that,

And I really like that part.

So now you have an idea of where John's influences and inspiration comes from.

There's a second part of our conversation coming up after a piece of John's music.

This is Soulstar,

Which he mentioned.

You put your music out under the name Alchemistic.

Now how did you come about choosing that name?

Well,

I do have a work,

You know,

I run a crystal shop with my other half,

Emma Jane.

She also goes under the name Ethereal.

She's a great artist and,

You know,

We sell the crystals and we help people with alternative therapy.

I wanted something that brought my creative expression together with my work and crystals are a little bit mystical.

And I do believe in magic and I think music is highly magical.

And so Alchemistic seemed like a natural name to choose.

Well,

I think music can really help people,

In my view,

In times of trouble,

In times of stress.

Yeah.

And also if you are struggling to relax,

I think music can take you away from yourself.

Yeah,

There's been many a time in my life,

And actually Adagio for Strings was one of those pieces of music that,

You know,

Perhaps when things weren't going to plan so much,

I took quite comfort from that sort of angelic feeling that comes from these compositions.

So I've got my most important question I need to ask you,

John,

Is how do people find out more about you as well as listen to and preferably buy your music?

Well,

There's so many ways you can access me,

Actually.

You saw there for you to make the most of,

Really.

I do believe if you engage in my music you will receive something from it,

Because that's what I set out to do when I write these pieces,

You see.

We'll put those links,

Listeners,

Out on our social media so you can get in touch and have a listen to all the other music that we've not played today that John's produced.

It's an interesting question for you,

John,

But would you ever consider performing live with your music?

I think now with the music I'm writing,

When I wrote Soulstar and Soda Light,

I realised that I needed to reach a broader audience in terms of adding drum beats and bass,

And maybe in the future,

When the music is sort of the right kind,

I feel I will do the live gigs,

Yeah.

Yeah,

Well there does seem now to be quite a few opportunities for people doing live gigs in a variety of venues.

Yeah,

Well I did used to gig a lot when I was younger,

And I did actually play at the Arts Centre many years ago.

We did some support work there and supported a band called The Picadillos.

I don't know if you heard them,

I don't know if they're still going,

But we did,

You know,

As a punk band,

You know.

Everyone has their punk phase.

Yeah,

Well,

Yeah,

It's kind of light-hearted punk,

I think,

But you know,

It's good fun and that was just the one time Because when I've listened to it,

What's popped into my head,

I thought this would go well as a live gig within the Minneries Gallery,

Or First Sight,

Or something like that.

Yeah,

But if you look on the social media,

Particularly my other half,

Emma Jane,

She's a great visual artist,

And you'll see the visual work that she does,

And a lot of the tracks I write are to her affirmations,

Are designed to help you relax and heal from within.

You will see that the music does sound quite visual,

Because it's written to visual art.

So there we are,

We'll have to have a see what the Minneries think.

You can ask them.

I will.

Well,

Thank you for taking the time to talk to Cone Radio,

John.

I really want to wish you the best of luck with your future musical journey,

And keep churning out this stuff that's really interesting to listen to.

Thank you,

I really appreciate that.

I hope you enjoyed that interview with John Jengesen.

Don't forget he puts his music out as alchemistic,

And do have a look at it.

Have a listen on the streaming sites.

It is available out there for you to listen to.

Here's one more track from John,

Another one he mentioned.

This is called Pyrite.

I hope you enjoyed that.

This is a bit different to what I normally play,

But I think music is a broad church,

And it's always worth listening to something a bit different.

Okay,

It's coming up to five o'clock.