Following his tenures in Japan and Porcupine Tree, Richard Barbieri has moved on to multiple collaborative projects and an acclaimed solo career
All photos © Carl Glover
Richard Barbieri has always regarded himself as a team player and it’s this selfless trait that makes him a reluctant solo artist. But when the band you’re in breaks up at the very height of its commercial success not once but twice, as happened to Barbieri with both pretty boy, new wavers Japan in the early 80s and again with not-so-pretty, post-prog rockers Porcupine Tree several decades later, what else is a pioneering synth-wizard to do but to go it alone?
“To be honest, I’m not sure how far I want to go with solo work because personally I’ve never been all that ambitious,” recalls Barbieri matter-offactly from the other end of a Zoom call conducted from his home in Kent. “I’ve always enjoyed success with others. I used to play a lot of team sports when I was younger and I’ve always got a lot of enjoyment winning with someone else. Much more than being on my own.”
Despite this natural diffidence to working outside of the band unit, with the release of the mesmerising Under A Spell, Barbieri is now four studio albums into a solo journey that, without the constraints of any semblance of set plan, continues to percolate nicely. With its expansive sound and elaborate arrangements, Under A Spell’s predecessor, 2017’s Planets + Persona, was widely regarded as a sonic breakthrough by the seasoned Londoner.
Come early 2020, eager to adventure deeper into his new-found sound, Barbieri was all set to make a follow-up that returned to where his previous collection of cinematic soundscapes had left off. But then the Covid-19 pandemic hit and through necessity the drawing board was promptly returned to.
Barbieri explains: “I was getting ready to jet off all around Europe and work with large ensemble groups of musicians in a number of different studios. The plan was to have a great fun time and make the recording a very social thing as well. But the experience of recording and the subsequent album turned into completely the opposite. Under A Spell certainly wasn’t the album that I intended to make.”
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