The Godfather of the 90’s trip hop scene who’s worked with U2 and Björk and penned a track for Oscar-nominated film The Wolf of Wall Street, has released his first studio album in five years.
Howie B’s Down With The Dawn is the first release from his new label HB Recordings and sees him going in a different direction to his previous musical offerings.
In the past few years Howie has been juggling a number of other projects abroad including compositions for a Hyundai campaign in America, and is currently working on Pepsi adverts in China.
“I’m very happy, it’s been a good few years since I’ve put out a proper fully grown album by me,” he said.
“In terms of concept it’s a little different to what I’ve done in the past. I normally choose a theme and stick with it, but this time there is a few different themes to it – I wanted to get more of me on it.
“The highlight recently for the past three or four years has been travelling to the east. It is completely different, I’m from Glasgow originally and it’s a completely different side of the road.”
While exploring what China had to offer he spent time composing music for a number of feature films.
One of his recent songs was for Martin Scorsese’s hit film The Wolf Of Wall Street, the film that was hotly-tipped as a contender at the Oscars.
Howie revealed: “Working with Martin was a great opportunity. It was magic and I’m very happy with what happened.
“It’s a really good tune and it’s the only song that was ripped for the film, which makes it even more special for me.
“The music that I make suits images, it’s got a lot of space visually. It can lend itself to beautiful images, whether its film or adverts there’s a variety of outlets.”
Howie started off his illustrious music career with an apprenticeship in a recording studio hoping to pursue a career in ‘making good music’.
He developed his engineering and production skills and he explained that it was working in the studio which proved to be his window of opportunity.
“I started at the very bottom making cups of tea, moving up from there. It took a while but i just kept at it,” he said. “And I’m still at it I’m still learning.”
Howie’s new album Down With The Dawn is a quietly-thrilling and beautifully-made body of music which takes a different direction to his usual style experimenting with a multitude of styles and sounds.
He collaborated with a number of other musicians and friends on the album to incorporate new, fresh ideas.
He said: “I think it’s the beautiful thing you can do with music, if you write a poem or a play it’s quite a solitary thing, but with music it’s social and it can be shared.”
Image courtesy of Native Instruments via YouTube, with thanks
