Rob Edgar spoke to composer / bass guitarist Jon Mapp, about his album, The World Will End With A Bang which is released on the 18th April, and launched on 17th at Lawrence Hall, University of West London, W5 5RF. More information HERE.

Rob Edgar: Tell me about yourself

Jon Mapp: I’m a bassist, I’ve recorded my début album called The World Will End With A Bang which is out on the 18th of April (launched on the 17th). The launch is a joint event with Open Ealing who are a local arts group.

RE: What’s the idea behind the album?

JM: The imagery that I had when I was writing it was a cross between different things: Dante’s Inferno and the paintings that had been created in his time, I had just watched Eraserhead by David Lynch, and I was also playing a video game called Limbo which forms the basis of one of the music videos I’d done for the track The Foxes Know All About You (it’s a fantastic indie game that’s been out for a couple of years).

RE: And what about the individual pieces?

JM: There’s a journey that goes through the album, I wrote the track titles first, decided what would work and subsequently recorded the music. Because it’s layered solo bass, it was important to think about compositional logistics (boring as that sounds!); I couldn’t just jam out.

RE: What’s going on in the album’s closing track

JM: Part of the story is the idea that there’s this figure who says that “the world will end with a bang”. The Bang is that occurring. Musically, the chords are quite simple; it’s the same with a lot of the album where the interest lies in what goes above the backing layer. It really made me think about development, there’s an arc to it and at the end you can hear the bang happening.

RE: Tell me about your sound? It’s quite distinctive.

JM: That’s something I’ve spent months thinking about. The pedal I’ve got controls a whole group of effects that come together. I like to think of it as a piano sustain pedal that happens to be able to trigger lots of delay and overdrive. You can use it in a way that – when you play something – you can accent it or sustain…whatever. The end of the album uses the effects in a big way to create a big wall of distorted sound.

RE: What can we expect from the launch?

JM: It’ll be a mix between music and visuals, which they’re making fit the aesthetic of the album. They’ll be doing some things with projectors and all sorts of stuff and I’ll be playing the album from start to finish. It’s at the University of West London and there’s some more information on my website.

RE: There’s a deal on the tickets too?

JM: It’s £10 for a ticket (and a free copy of the album)

Rob Edgar: Any other projects on the go?

JM: I work with Agata Kubiak, who is a Polish singer and violinist, I arrange some music for her which is great fun, and I’ve just started a free-improv trio (bass guitar, double bass, and drums).