5 Questions with Evan Gildersleeve
5 Questions with Evan Gildersleeve
The Brighton-based composer on emotional clarity, collaboration, and the making of his most personal record to date.
Evan Gildersleeve is a composer and producer based in Brighton whose work sits somewhere between ambient music, sound design, and experimental electronics. His latest release, Wake, is his most personal to date—a slow, careful project shaped by anger, reflection, and the process of untangling long-held emotions. It marks a clear shift in his approach. After years working behind the scenes as an engineer and collaborator, Gildersleeve has moved into a space that feels more instinctive, more direct.
Voice plays a central role in the record; it is not always recognisable, often processed or fragmented, but always close. There’s a looseness to the way these tracks take shape. Rather than building toward a climax, they expand and contract, giving space to whatever feeling is trying to surface. It’s a record that doesn’t try to fix anything, just to hold it for a moment.
In our conversation, Gildersleeve reflects on learning to sit with difficult emotions, letting go of unhelpful narratives, and the relief that comes with allowing space for anger, rather than burying it. He talks about collaboration as a way of stepping outside yourself, and how improvising with voice has opened up a more intuitive, expressive way of working.
Wake doesn’t ask to be read as a statement, it’s quieter than that. But across its shifting textures and subtle forms, it offers something rare: a kind of emotional clarity that doesn’t need to explain itself.
How has music helped you process difficult emotions or experiences in your life?
It’s taken a long time to arrive at a point where I feel like I’m channelling something honest through my music. I had to completely dismantle the way I’d been approaching it and free myself of any expectations to allow my lived experiences to seep in. This became intertwined with a personal dismantling of sorts, so this latest project presented a safe space to offload.
I’ve found it increasingly important to sit with challenging emotions and music has this wonderful ability of helping suspend time. As such, each track on ‘Wake’ has existed in many forms and it felt beneficial to slow down and consider the endless possibilities. Ultimately this project allowed the space I needed to get comfortable whilst untangling experiences that have felt particularly difficult to hold.
Wake is your most introspective release yet. What did you learn about yourself while creating it?
I came to understand how angry I was, but this was also incredibly difficult to access. For years, it had appeared in unhelpful ways, and suppression only served to fuel a spiral. I had to learn not to minimise my experiences in the face of others I deemed to be far worse if I ever had a hope of moving forward. This process became pivotal and helped me discard some really unhelpful narratives that had been holding me back for years.
Anger and shame had always felt intrinsically linked so I’d often B-line directly to sadness. I see things very differently now and it’s as if I’ve given myself permission to experience the full spectrum of emotions, not just push the difficult ones away. It is of course a work in progress, but it’s helping me develop a healthier level of self-acceptance and allowing me address challenges in my life with a lot more clarity.
“I had to learn not to minimise my experiences in the face of others I deemed to be far worse if I ever had a hope of moving forward.”
What's the most surprising thing you've learned from collaborating with other artists?
I think collaboration can be a wonderful way to deepen our understanding of others and help foster empathy. You’re often climbing inside some else’s creative world, perhaps helping them to express themselves in some way. That’s one of the greatest privileges I can possibly imagine. It’s also a helpful way to get out of your own head every once in a while!
I’ve come to realise that despite the tools and language being similar, the dialogue is always unique. Perhaps there’s complete creative freedom, and you can go all out on weird and wonderful processes. Other times, you might be writing in someone else’s voice. It really varies. Ultimately, it’s really exciting when you can feel that all hands are at work in service of this bigger creative idea. Sometimes your contribution might be relevant and other times discarded, and I feel like that’s really healthy for the ego, especially in balancing more self-focused work.
“There are few instruments more intimate than the voice… it continues to become a really powerful limitation in my work.”
You often experiment with the human voice in your work. What draws you to it as an instrument?
I feel there are few instruments more intimate than the voice. In its purest form, it can reveal a palpable vulnerability, yet it can also be bent and twisted out of all recognition, through processing or extended performance techniques. I’ve found it to be incredibly versatile, yet it continues to become a really powerful limitation in my work.
There’s an immediacy that I’ve often found enviable in trained musicians that’s been a real joy to harness. I can just grab a live mic and start! It’s also opened me up to new avenues of improvisation that I find to be incredibly expressive. I’m working a lot more intuitively in generating sound, and it’s become a wonderful means by which to weave as much of myself through the music as possible.
What film, TV or game score would you recommend for people to listen to and why?
I’ve recently become obsessed with Oliver Coates’ score for Thomas M Wright’s ‘The Stranger.’ It begins with some really visceral sound design, then descends through these incredibly stark passages of tension. Such a great reminder of how much you can achieve with so little, just a single instrument. I feel like every aspect of that film is serving to push the audience to the absolute brink, and it’s incredibly affecting.
Follow Evan here.
