Band Meeting – The Sweet Hunamafi Rhythm Orchestra

Ok, Let’s get the elephant dealt with… Sweet Hunamafi?
Hugh: Ahh – that one – well perhaps the only mystery word is Hunamafi and that is just a breakdown of our names Hu(gh)Na(nkivell)Ma(rk)fi(sher) – I guess that orchestra has an ambition about it, and sweet and rhythm are helpful words to bringing our audience up close and personal. I did originally have an idea of making all the music ourselves but crediting imaginary people for playing some of the parts, but that only lasted into the first song!

So there’s the two of you – Mark Fisher and Hugh Nankivell plus guests? Who gets to be in the orchestra? 
Mark: It’s fluid. We’ve co-opted everyone from family members to professional musicians and a community choir. Some of them might not realise they’re part of the orchestra. The small print is very small.

I’ve met you before Hugh, and you are very active in getting people to make music – is this what you mean by being a ‘Social Musician’?
Hugh: For many years I called myself a community musician, but social somehow feels more connected with what I do. Some music is anti-social and I think and hope that I veer away from that even if at times my idiosyncracies pop out. Most of my employed work these days is in health and wellbeing settings – hospitals and care homes, and I love seeing the very magic that music can create.

And Mark – is there a smell of XTC around here?
Mark: I published a fanzine for XTC, the Swindon pop group, in the 1980s and today, I am the host of What Do You Call That Noise? The XTC Podcast. Logic would suggest that an XTC influence seeps in, but I would say it does so only in the most general terms. I can think of three broad areas: one, we share a love of melody; two, our subject matter ranges beyond boy-meets-girl (and includes boy-meets-girl); and three, in some recordings we include a lot of incidental detail.

Are you those annoying musicians who can play anything well? I get that impression.
Hugh: I’m not sure about ‘well’ but there is a confidence that I can put something together quickly and don’t worry too much about the finesse. Mark is more bashful about his musical abilities but he is starting to weave his wands around the mixing business, and I enjoy sending him half-baked ideas and seeing what he will adventure with them.

Where and how do you mostly create your recordings?
Mark: I write the words which I often do when inspiration strikes at home in Edinburgh. I travel a lot for work (I’m a theatre critic) which means a lot of time on trains and a lot of time observing the world, so a lot of songs have started on trains, restaurants and hotel rooms. Hugh then takes on the musical side.
Hugh: This happens mostly at home for me, and when I was writing the news songs for Soundart Radio back in the day, I got very quick at making decisions and sticking to them and leaving the rough edges, but happily so. I am intrigued by the difference between an ‘instant song’ and a more measured one. I really can’t tell the difference sometimes.

I’ve been lucky enough to get a daily email recently for an aural advent calendar with a new song EVERY day for 24 days – what inspired that?
Hugh: It was me hassling Mark to put some of our output from the last year out there. We met up in-person recently and discovered that we had made such a number of songs that we needed a spreadsheet (Mark is tops on spreadsheeting) and I said well let’s start releasing them into the world and as December was approaching this felt like a good time. But of course new ones keep popping up including a couple about Christmas (of course).

With so much ‘content’ I was expecting rather minimal productions but these are well produced, very amusing and lyrical pieces – are you just really fast workers?
Mark: I seem to be able to come up with words quite quickly and Hugh comes up with the music incredibly quickly. It’s not unusual for me to send Hugh some words after breakfast and have a song back by lunch. The Advent recordings you’re hearing are drawn from the past two or three years, including one session in a recording studio, so it’s not like we’re churning them out daily, but I’m always astonished at how quickly Hugh works.

It looks like you’re creating music 9-5 or do you go when the inspiration hits. 
Hugh: If I am at home and Mark sends me a lyric then I usually put it up on the pianoforte and start singing along, and usually get somewhere and want to share that and so instead of just recording it on ‘voice-memo’s’ or some such I start a multi-track recording and then add in a bass and a glockenspiel and 3 viola parts and not only is it past my lunchtime soup time, but we have made another Hunamafi offering.  This is what I do – I am a social musician and compulsive snowmaker.

I know Hugh has several musical projects – can you tell me about them?
Hugh: Currently it is mainly duets I seem to be dealing in – so as well as SHRO I have Fowl as a duet with Graham Browning. This is a very different beast as Graham is an ‘afflicted songwriter’ and so our combination means very different speeds of working, but we are ploughing a happy furrow of words and music together that are not necessarily songs. Then I also have Corkivell – a duet with a wonderful 16 year old trombone/guitar/drum/pianist. We have lately been working on some duration studies.

What about you Mark, other projects outside of Sweet Hunamafi?
Mark: I’m a freelance arts journalist, so I’m used to doing a mix of things as work comes and goes. This week I’m travelling around the country reviewing Christmas shows for the Guardian. I’m overdue for setting up next month’s XTC podcast. I’ll be giving some talks for the Arts Society in the new year. Sweet Hunamafi is the most creative of all these things.

I haven’t seen you for a while, where are you based now? 
Hugh: I left Torquay after 15 happy years (and really missing the sea swimming this autumn) had a year in Edinburgh where Mark and I cemented (is that the right word – perhaps spliced is better) our working relationship by making a song-cycle about the journey between our two homes at top and bottom of Leith walk. Now moved to Bristol and living near to the cricket ground.

This advent project is via SoundCloud as a digital project – what are your thoughts on digital vs CDs or vinyl?
Mark: I’ll let Hugh comment on the audio side, but the huge advantage of online platforms is you can make your music available more or less instantly. In the old days, we would have been copying cassette tapes and sending them out by post. The internet gets a lot of bad press, but away from all the negative aspects, it provides amazing democratic opportunities.

Have you any projects you are working on – 
Hugh: Always projects in the pipeline – and when you share the idea of a project it becomes real so here goes – a non-verbal piece of music and theatre for the pre and post-verbal communities. An anniversary of the 100th death date of Oliver Heaviside on 3/2/25 and a few concerts of the songs of Sufjan Stevens this winter in Huddersfield, Edinburgh and Bristol.

Where can we hear more of your music?
Mark: I’ll stick with https://soundcloud.com/Sweet-Hunamafi-Rhythm for now.