Interview: Megan Jenkins
Megan Jenkins is one of our super-talented sound designers and composers. She’s also a DJ and an artist (JMEG, producing music within the experimental realm).
She has worked on projects like 1984, The Woman In Black, and helped create the new BBC Radio 6 Music sonic identity. We wanted the world to get to know her better and find out just what makes her tick.
What’s the best piece of immersive art you’ve experienced recently?
Meg: I recently experienced a spatial piece of music by Nik Rawlings at The Bath House In Hackney Wick, and it was so beautiful. The piece was solely vocal and they used a combination of harmonic layering and spatial mixing to create a really moving immersive experience. I felt like I was being wrapped up in their voice.
What is your biggest motivation to creating music and building these underscores/soundscapes?
Meg: I love creating and evoking emotion for listeners and audiences. A lot of my work takes the listener on a journey and is a non linear experience. I’m interested in combining feelings of intensity, softness, uncomfortableness and humour, as well as exploring elements of queer culture. I also often draw on my experience as a neurodivergent when creating work. Creating music and sound is how I’ve always expressed myself.
What is your artistic process, and how does that change when working on podcasts and dramas?
Meg: I'm pretty intuitive in the way I work for my own music. I look at a feeling I want to convey, get into that mindset. I'll think about the pace, tempo, and textural instrumentation. But for underscores, you are serving the story. I’m often working with already composed music and using my emotional intuition to think about what that moment needs, what feeling needs to come from it, and what we are trying to capture. Most of my time is spent searching for the right music that can sit perfectly under the narrative. Sometimes that might mean putting two different tracks together or quickly composing something unique if the story requires it.
But what about when it's for a brand where you might need to create that story?
Meg: With Granny Eats Wolf, I get to really push that process. The spatial audio books that we've made are really immersive. I find it really exciting what we can do in this space. But with a brand, I find the music has to capture the emotion and a feeling of what the brand wants to say and what their identity is. Those things become your creative guardrails. Then it’s my job to create something really worth listening to.
Meg at Amoenus presents: XOLO, UK where her work was recently exhibited.
Most recently you’ve created 360-degree immersive soundscapes in Dolby Atmos that feature in each episode of our Sleep On It podcast. What made these soundscapes so special to make?
Meg: The Sleep on It podcast aims to help us gain a better understanding of sleep and how we can sleep better. This first series was focused on ADHD. I was diagnosed a few years ago with ADHD, so I felt I could bring my lived experience into this project.
Has sleep always been an issue for you?
Meg: I've struggled with my sleep since I was very young, but I didn't realise until recently that there was a connection between ADHD and sleep. ADHD has an impact on the circadian rhythm, which means that we don't always have a sleep-wake cycle that is standard for a lot of people. For instance, it'll be 9 p.m. or 10 p.m., and that will be when I'm at my most sharp, excited to do things and feel like I can get loads done. But during the daytime, I'll feel quite fatigued.
But creating something to fall asleep to is a bit strange, right?
Meg: If I listen to something that is aimed at making me go to sleep or sending me to sleep, it often stresses me out even more. If I don't get sleep, I end up thinking ‘What's wrong with me?’ ‘Why can't I sleep?’. I've created these soundscapes to help with the wind-down process before falling asleep.
So what does help?
Meg: One technique that I use to try and calm my mind is to think of real spaces and imagine myself being there. For example, when I visit my grandparents in Wales, they always take me to this forest where there are waterfalls and birds flying around. It's really calm and peaceful. The idea is that this simulation helps draw your attention away from your thoughts. I wanted to create these soundscapes to capture the attention of someone with ADHD and help them focus on these sounds rather than their thoughts.
Some of them are more music and melody-driven with certain frequencies that are scientifically proven to help calm the mind in preparation for sleep. A couple of them are more experiential dreamlike scenarios. One of the environments I did was an underwater experience. I personally find water to be very soothing, so I created a soundscape that makes you feel like you've put your head underwater, like a calming bay of water. You've got bubbles coming up slowly at certain frequencies and noise that is scientifically proven to keep the brain calm and to prepare you for sleep.
They all start quite busy, slowly drifting into more minimal noises and musical patterns. It’s the wind-down before static, which hopefully is the moment they fall asleep.
And how did mixing these in Dolby Atmos help?
Meg: It’s amazing. Having all the sounds coming around your head makes the experience hyper-realistic and it feels like you’re actually in these spaces. It literally takes you out of your mind and into some other dimension.
