DP is an old friend; I've been following his career since he was, er, 16, and have watched him grow into one the UK's most prolific and successful  TV composers - and certainly its most consistently adventurous. Anyway, I wouldn't mention such things here normally; that's what Don't Get Me Started is for. But I thought it worth drawing attention to this audio interview with Daniel, conducted by Paul Morley for his "Showing Off" show on the Guardian's website. I bring it up not especially for the content - although it's an insightful interview and there's plainly a rapport there - but more for its format and, well, that it exists at all:

- It's 37.34 long - give or take the audio stings; how would that fit into scheduled, linear output?
- Yet it's exactly the length it is and the platform requires no editing.
- It's conversational, really conversation, and perhaps therefore not as slick as you'd expect from the usual broadcasting subjects... and as a result, of course, infinitely more authentic.
- It's an interview with a TV composer; where else in the mainstream media are you going to come across a 40 minute interview with such a category of artisan?!
- And it's one which references Krautrock and Jerry Goldsmith and Stockhausen and The Orb and Debussy... with not the slightest attempt to talk down to the listener or dumb down in the name of some spurious "mission to explain".

So in short this is a great example of what the new media bring us: smartness, insight, subjects outside the glare of the mainstream media (and I'm including our own allegedly high-brow public service broadcasters in there, should you be tempted to think otherwise), and a format - that is, a length - which fits the content. Not the other way round.
Simon

Leave a Reply