Chris Hawkins: 'Park Hill fills the skyline on the edge of Sheffield'

Their album, No One Talks, was inspired by the poetry of Rowan Blair Colver, one-time resident of Park Hill estate, the distinctive ‘streets in the sky’ complex of flats overlooking Sheffield city centre that was once synonymous with urban decay but has undergone a renaissance in recent times. As a landmark, Hawkins notes, Park Hill “fills the skyline on the edge, so it’s always this big, looming place, concrete, brutalist” and he found himself drawn in by Colver’s poems as soon as he discovered them.

“He’d lived there through the more challenging times and he’d just written this really beautiful poetry,” he says. “It was just really easy and accessible, it was about his experiences, his reflections, a lot about the people that lived there, and the compassion that he experienced. But I think it was the contrast that got me. You look at that place and it can look quite gloomy but this really thoughtful, insightful poetry came out of the middle of it. That was probably the original trigger.”

Hawkins sought to reflect some of Colver’s experiences in the songs that he composed. “Some of his poetry I’ve used directly,” he says, explaining that he has “been in touch with the guy, he knows all about the project and he was very pleased that it was going ahead”. Other songs use snippets of lines or simply drew on the mood that Colver evoked.

Hawkins visited the estate to make field recordings too. “You could pick up things like city centre sirens and trains rumbling away,” he says. “(Colver) mentions in one of his poems hearing the rumbling of trains and the Tannoy speakers down below, and he talks about the changes of weather. From where he was, on one of the upper floors, he could see the weather coming in miles away and he’d get the early warning of when the storms and the snow was coming in. All of those things were great for generating musical ideas.”

The song More Than I Can Speak was inspired by a piece of graffiti at Park Hill. “It’s on the highest walkway between two blocks of Park Hill,” Hawkins explains. “I first saw it in the poetry book which Rowan had written, I think he actually called it the ‘I Love You’ bridge, and there’s a full poem about the story behind that. That led me to looking a bit further and discovering that the BBC had at some point covered it, possibly The Guardian as well, and this story which I’d never heard until that point unfolded.

“It was about this guy that wanted to express his feelings (to a woman) by putting a message on the bridge, and I think he took her across the other side of the city, where the Odeon cinema is, and there’s a view across and that’s where he revealed this message. It all sounded lovely and warm and great, but it’s got a very sad ending: she died and they never did properly get together. One of them had a troubled background. But it just really resonated with me, this message of hope and love endures, and it does to this day. The company that have regenerated the flats have agreed to maintain the message, and they’ve even put some neon lighting over it.

“I’ve not heard anybody go into the story of it, which I found intriguing. It’s just another dimension to that wonderful place. It’s got humanity at its heart, even though it had a sad ending. But it left a very positive message, which lives on, which is nice.”

Hawkins had previously worked with Bacon on his 2017 album Silent Conversations, a classical collection that reimagined sacred chants, and brought in Davies to add a rockier dimension to No One Talks. “It was a bit of a gamble, but I certainly felt it worked well,” he says. “He added so much, he’s a very experienced singer and songwriter, so working with him there was quite a lot of space for creativity and for him to put his own stamp on it.”

Making a guest appearance is Wayne Hussey, singer and guitarist with The Mission. “It was an honour to have him on and it was fabulous just to have him do his thing,” Hawkins says. “There are a couple of songs where he does spoken word and just that depth of his voice, the timing, it’s that colour that years of experience have given him.”

No One Talks is available on streaming services now. Hawkins hopes that later this year North Machine will make their live debut. https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/northmachine/no-one-talks