Poet and brand writer Tim Rich first encountered ARgENTUM when delivering a language and poetry workshop to the creative team. He has been an admirer ever since, considering it “a compelling brand with extraordinary depths”. Commercially, Tim has evolved from specialising in helping start-ups and companies in crisis to becoming a New York Times bestselling book ghostwriter and editor. As a teenager, Tim was a drummer, and rhythm and structure played a massive role in his writing life.
He was drawn to the energy of the EXPLORER. This was partly due to EXPLORER’s Tarot significance and its broader archetypal character: “It’s this remarkable combination of the energy of going out and returning, of light and shade, of exploring new places and bringing discoveries back home. The nuances within an archetype give it energy”. Tim took that as his inspiration. For him, exploration is the essence of true creativity – creating something where nothing existed before.
Tim loves to explore music. Spotify provides an opportunity for what he calls “mad, mad journeys”. He and his wife, Lesley, often go on hour-long explorations of musical genres, each song leading to the next. For his ARgENTUM soundtrack, he wanted to combine this spirit of exploration with geographical and cultural breadth.
Some of the stories behind the tracks carry a lot of darkness, “but out of that comes the energy of the music, producing something beautiful – a form of light”. Tim also loves that one can go on such global musical explorations from an armchair. He settled by a roaring log fire and thought about the EXPLORER archetype, saying to himself: “Don’t think about it – just let the idea of where I should start come to me. And I was taken to Mali”.
Mogoya – Oumou Sangaré
I wanted to begin with a gorgeous voice. Oumou Sangaré is sometimes known as The Songbird of Wassoulou, a cross-border region in West Africa that includes Mali. She began singing at an early age to help financially support her mother and sisters, who had been abandoned by their father. This began an incredible career. She sings often about love, marriage and the role of women in society. In Mogoya (a dialect word combining ‘humanity’ and ‘honesty’), she expresses concern about how people treat each other these days, and, in keeping with her musical tradition, she’s singing for the community's wellbeing.
Mass in B Minor, BWV 232, Pt. IV: Agnus Dei, Live – Johann Sebastian Bach, Haleh Seyfizadeh
I follow what’s going on in Iran, particularly the repression of women and the brave protests where women sing unlawfully in the streets. So, I wanted to include some Iranian music, but I also wanted Bach in this soundtrack – would there be space for both? Then I remembered this fabulous album, Bach and Sufi Live, a collaboration between classical Western and Persian musicians. I often listen to the Mass in B Minor, but this meeting of traditions adds new dimensions. Haleh Seyfizadeh, singing in Farsi, brings a sense of fragility and strength.
This Bitter Earth/On The Nature of Daylight – Max Richter, Clyde Otis, Dinah Washington
This continues the theme of meeting points between musical cultures. There’s Max Richter’s track On the Nature of Daylight – modern, Western classical – and Dinah Washington's song, with lyrics by Clyde Otis, This Bitter Earth. Both are remarkable tracks in their own right, but here they duet to create something of a different order. And then there’s the poetry of the Clyde Otis lyrics: “And if my life is like the dust/ that hides the glow of a rose/ what good am I?/ Heaven only knows”.
I Need You to Stop Calling My Phone – Daudi Matsiko
Daudi Matsiko is a British-Ugandan songwriter. This track is from his debut album, recently released. His themes often address mental health issues. But out of his emotional suffering comes music of such delicacy, such fine beauty. As with this track, I love music that keeps space between the instruments, that isn’t afraid of moving in and out of something close to silence. The way this song holds you – the confidence of the singer-musician to suspend you in this rare atmosphere.
The Colour of Spring – Mark Hollis
Here, again, is something moving between sound and silence, light and shade. Hollis was the lead singer of the band Talk Talk, who I listened to a lot in my teens. They started out making great pop music and became delightfully esoteric, right up to Hollis’s solo album, which I listen to almost too much. He died in 2019, and I discovered that his last years were spent in a house down a track in Sussex, just a mile or two from where I grew up. That stumbled upon connection to home reminded me of the lines from T.S. Eliot’s poem Little Gidding: “We shall not cease from exploration/ And the end of all our exploring/ Will be to arrive where we started/ And know the place for the first time”.
Hulls – Loney Dear
Swedish singer-songwriter Loney Dear was recommended to me by a friend. We saw him play in a tiny cellar in Dalston with fewer than 100 people. It was one of those gigs when the venue started to levitate. His music is intimate, intense, candlelit. It reminds me of a time when I was working in Sweden, often in the winter. Sometimes, after dinner, we would walk across a frozen lake to a castle on a tiny island with such a clear sky above us. Again, the lyrics here are compelling: “And the women/ they sing in their low keys/ they sing how did they get here/ I wish they could carry me over the waters...”
He Moved Through The Fair – Sinéad O'Connor
I grew up surrounded by Irish music, as my mum’s parents were Irish, and I spent a lot of time with my grandmother. This is a famous and much-covered folk song, but Sinéad makes it her own here, and it’s a live performance. It’s as if she’s standing opposite you, staring into your eyes – so raw, so exposed. The lyrics create an atmospheric tale of love, doubt and waiting. But then, there’s this gothic sense that the bridegroom may be visiting from the afterlife. And to where is he really inviting her?
Polegnala E Todora (Love Chant) – The Bulgarian State Radio & Television Female Vocal Choir
John Peel used to play this choir on his late-night Radio 1 show. Why did he like this music? And why did I, a young bumpkin from rural Sussex who loved new wave and hair gel, respond to Balkan polyphony and strange dissonant chords? The moment I heard it, I was in a kind of rapture. Originally recorded in 1975, it was picked up by Ivo Watts-Russell of 4AD Records. Their bands included Cocteau Twins and This Mortal Coil, so I guess it reached a receptive audience already immersed in choral atmospherics. If you remain open, you encounter art that turns your world upside down.
Bethlehem Down – Peter Warlock, VOCES8
This is a sublime piece written in 1927. Peter Warlock was a brilliant composer and an eccentric who became increasingly interested in the occult. Imagine: he has little money, is drinking heavily and living in a rented cottage in Suffolk. One evening, his friend – ‘poet, journalist, and wine merchant’ Bruce Blunt – visits, and they head to the pub. Several jars in, they learn that The Daily Telegraph is holding its annual carol composition competition with a cash prize. So, perhaps, was born this other-worldly piece. From a scarred, flawed, occultic pair comes a gentle lullaby to the Baby Jesus, with lines such as: “Here he has peace and a short while for dreaming”.
denver luna (acappella) – Underworld
Underworld are best known for driving dance beats – like their track Born Slippy .NUXX in the film Trainspotting. There is a dance version of this track, but I wanted to share the acappella version here. It’s a development of the vocal polyphony we’ve heard in Bach, Warlock and the Bulgarian choir, but brought into a synthesised, post-modern world. I find it addictive. I’d love to hear it sung by the St. Paul’s Cathedral Choir. There are chord changes here that make me melt. And Karl Hyde’s trademark lyrical fragments, like shards of culture.
There Are Other Worlds (They Have Not Told You Of) Remastered – Sun Ra & His Arkestra
In any kind of exploration these days, we need to think about space – even the US government seems interested again in other worlds and other beings. Who better to explore those realms with than Sun Ra? As a college student, he had a ‘moment’ in which he felt he was transported to Saturn. While there, he was told that he was wasting his time at college and that the world needed his music. Jazz composer, bandleader, and musician, he is a true musical explorer; there’s such energy and happiness in his music.
Turiya and Ramakrishna – Alice Coltrane
Coltrane went from working as a jazz musician in Detroit, later collaborating with her husband, John Coltrane, to being deeply immersed in Hindu mysticism. In Hindu philosophy, Turiya is the true self – a fourth state of consciousness beyond waking, dreaming and dreamless sleep – and Ramakrishna was a Hindu mystic. This track is broadly about Ramakrishna’s journey towards Nirvana. You have these almost irritatingly repetitive riffs at the beginning, yet they evolve slightly each time – just like a mantra – then they blossom, all with the rich timbre of that piano, the drums, the bass...
Chnang Jas Bai Chgn-ainj (Old Pot, Tasty Rice) – Ros Serey Sothea
I wanted to end with something new to me – exploring, always. Ros Serey Sothea grew up in Cambodia in the 50s and 60s, and her distinctive voice led to her becoming known for singing Cambodian ballads on the radio. Later, she was influenced by American music. But, when the Khmer Rouge took power, she went missing. Again, life can bring terrible darkness, but there’s an open-hearted joy in this track I wanted to celebrate. Those drums! The lyrics go something like: “I’m 16, what’s going to happen in life? Is love bitter, sweet, or sour?” All the excitement of being young and having life before you, there to explore.
Listen to the EXPLORER Soundtrack, curated by Tim Rich:
