British composer (born 1962)
Neil Davidge |
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| Born | (1962-06-29) 29 June 1962 (age 61)
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| Occupation(s) | Record producer, songwriter, film score composer, musician |
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Neil Davidge (born 29 June 1962) is an English record producer, songwriter, film score composer, musician, and occasional backing vocalist. Once an associate of dance producers DNA, he is best known as the long-term co-writer and producer for the music production outfit Massive Attack.[1] In 1997, he also produced the Sunna album One Minute Science. During that time he has established a career as a film score composer including projects such as Push, Bullet Boy, Trouble the Water, and additional music for Clash of the Titans.
Artists he has worked with include Unkle, Damon Albarn, Elizabeth Fraser, Mos Def, David Bowie, and Snoop Dogg.[2]
In 2012, he composed the soundtrack to the video game Halo 4 and recorded "The Storm That Brought Me To You" with Tina Dico and Ramin Djawadi for the Clash of the Titans soundtrack, the first vocal track for which he is credited as an artist separately from Massive Attack.[1] In 2017, Davidge composed the critically acclaimed soundtrack for the TV series, Britannia,[3] and in 2023, co-scored Apple TV+'s Criminal Record.[4]
Career
DNA (1989–1992)
Davidge worked with UK duo DNA in the period between 1989 and 1992, co-producing four singles and one album.[5]
Massive Attack (1995–2010)
Davidge had met Massive Attack's Andrew Vowles as early as 1991, and was in and around Bristol's Coach House Studios when Portishead recorded their debut album Dummy between 1991 and 1994. Neil was introduced to the rest of Massive Attack in 1996, and hitting it off, he produced 'The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game', a song for the Batman Forever soundtrack that featured Everything But The Girl vocalist Tracey Thorn.[6]
Working in close collaboration with Massive's Robert Del Naja, Neil shaped the sound of the band's third album, 1998's Mezzanine, including the song "Teardrop", which became the theme song for the medical drama "House". Mezzanine won a Q Award for Best Album[7] and was nominated for a Mercury Award.[8]
As with Mezzanine, Massive Attack's fourth album 100th Window was largely piloted by Davidge and Robert Del Naja. Sessions were protracted and pressurised, the group discarding material to re-write the whole record in the last six months of a three-year odyssey. "Some great things had been said about Mezzanine and we didn't want to repeat ourselves", says Neil "It was a strange period of isolation and the weirdness of 9/11, but we got there in the end."[9][non-primary source needed]
Following the release of 100th Window, Davidge and Del Naja established a new studio in Bristol, which would become the primary recording location for Massive Attack going forward, as well as Davidge and Del Naja's soundtrack projects.[10]
Collected was Massive Attack's best of album released on 27 March 2006. The album was preceded by the release of the single "Live With Me" on 13 March. "Live With Me" was co-written and produced by Davidge.[citation needed].
Heligoland is the fifth studio album by Massive Attack. Co-produced by Davidge and Robert Del Naja with additional production by Tim Goldsworthy, the record features vocals from Horace Andy, Tunde Adebimpe, Damon Albarn, Hope Sandoval, Guy Garvey and Martina Topley-Bird. Davidge co-wrote eight of the ten tracks as well as playing keyboards, bass and guitar.
Film & TV projects (2004–present)
In 2004 Luc Besson approached Davidge and Robert Del Naja to score the movie Danny The Dog, later renamed Unleashed. There then followed scores for Bullet Boy, Battle in Seattle, and Trouble the Water, which received an Oscar nomination as Best Documentary Feature. It is a moving study of those displaced by Hurricane Katrina which won 'Best Documentary' at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. Working with Snoop Dogg, Neil also scored the music for In Prison My Whole Life, a documentary about US death-row journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Away from his collaborations with Robert, Neil scored the music to the Paul McGuigan directed Push and provided additional music to the Warner Brothers film Clash of the Titans working alongside composer Ramin Djawadi. He was approached by director Louis Leterrier to replace Matt Bellamy from Muse who had to pull out due to touring commitments in the USA.[11] Davidge also went on to score the documentary film Citizen Koch, action thriller Good People, and Monsters: Dark Continent, the sequel to Gareth Edwards' Monsters. He also scored two television films for the BBC; drama-documentary 8 Days: To The Moon and Back, co-scored with David Poore, as well as drama Sitting in Limbo, about the 2018 Windrush scandal. Both were nominated for BAFTA Awards, with the latter winning the British Academy Television Award for Best Single Drama at the 2021 British Academy Television Awards.[12]
His first TV score was for the Canal+ series Spotless, which was also later released on Netflix. This was followed by the scores for New Blood and In the Dark, both of which premiered on BBC One. In 2018 saw the release of Sky Atlantic's Britannia, starring David Morrissey, Mackenzie Crook and Kelly Reilly. Davidge's largest TV project yet, Britannia was renewed for two successive series, with season 2 premiering in 2019, and season 3 in 2021. The first season of Britannia, featuring Davidge's "stunning" score [13] was closely followed by another Davidge scored show for BBC One, Hard Sun. Starring Jim Sturgess and Agyness Deyn, Hard Sun was written and created by Luther creator Neil Cross, the latter show having used a Neil Davidge produced track, "Paradise Circus" from Massive Attack's Heligoland as its theme. He has also scored a number of television documentaries, including Amazon Studios' All or Nothing: Tottenham Hotspur, as well as co-scoring BBC Earth's Earth From Space with fellow Bristol-based composer David Poore. Davidge's newest project, Apple TV+'s Criminal Record was released on January 10, 2024. Starring Peter Capaldi and Cush Jumbo, Davidge co-scored the project with Michael Asante.
Halo 4 Original Soundtrack (2012)
On 11 April 2012, Davidge was revealed to be the composer for the Halo 4 Original Soundtrack, the official soundtrack of the video game Halo 4.[14] A self-professed fan of previous Halo games, he and 343 Industries felt the music needed to change to fit the new trilogy. "The phrase that kept going around was 'evolution not revolution' of the score," he said. "[They wanted a] more electronic, slightly more beat-driven direction, which is one reason why they came to me. They wanted to flesh out, sonically, a new universe. One that they could expand on in subsequent sequels.”[15] The majority of the soundtrack was written in Bristol, and recorded at Abbey Road Studios and Angel Recording Studios, both situated in London. Davidge and his production team enlisted the 50-piece Chamber Orchestra of London, as well as 26 male and female vocalists and other performers.[16][17]
The Original Soundtrack for Halo 4 was released on October 19, 2012, and debuted at No. 50 on the Billboard 200 chart, becoming the highest peaking video game soundtrack on Billboard's charts. Nearly 9,000 units were sold in the first week alone.[18]
This was followed by Halo 4 Original Soundtrack Remixes, featuring remixes by Sander van Doorn & Julian Jordan, Gui Boratto, and Andrew Bayer, as well as an Apocalyptica vs Neil Davidge remix of The Beauty of Cortana. Halo 4 Original Soundtrack Volume 2 was released digitally on April 8, 2013.[19]
Slo Light (2014)
Davidge established his own studio in 2010. His debut solo album Slo Light was released in February 2014, and features guest vocalists including Low Roar, Sandie Shaw and Cate Le Bon. The album was accompanied by three singles. The first single was "Slo Light", released on 3 December 2013. The second single, "Sleepwalking", released on 20 February 2014, five days before the album's release, followed by the third single, "Riot Pictures", on 7 October 2014.
