How did you get into music composition and how would you describe your style?

I always wanted to compose my own music. I learnt classical guitar as a teenager and I’d often write short songs, though never sing!

I bought music software about a year and a half ago, on a bit of a whim. It’s the same software that Hans Zimmer uses, and I got it with the intention of writing film score-type music. But pretty quickly I became increasingly interested in electronic music. Now, I spend most my time making music that takes a lot of flavours from house, and a few flavours from R&B, trap and EDM.

To begin with, I spent a lot of time trying to be too clever, experimenting with weird chords, unusual time signatures and so on. I made a lot more progress once I went back to basics. Often, simple is best and you can introduce more complex elements once you have a basic mix that sounds good. Love it or hate it, ‘Closer’ by The Chainsmokers has been at the top of the charts for weeks, and its basic building block is a single chord!

What is the main inspiration behind the LILY soundtrack?

Isla (Cowan, the writer and director of LILY) gave me a lot of freedom. She was looking for something that sounded contemporary and high-energy, and that gave me an opportunity to take elements from some of my favourite artists, like Flume and Odesza.

In particular, Flume has been a big inspiration. Right now, he’s making huge waves in electronic music. He’s 25, he’s got two amazing albums, and more and more artists are copying his style. He says that he is inspired to create sounds that no one has ever heard of, and I tried to take that on board when I began writing music for LILY. I designed most of my synths from scratch, and hopefully that gives the songs a unique feel.

What excites you about working on LILY?

It’s been a really useful impetus for me to make a lot of tracks over the summer and it’s exciting to tie my creative efforts to everyone else’s: Isla’s writing and direction, the acting, set, lighting and so on. The last rehearsal I saw looked really good, and the cast is brilliant.

I sometimes worry that the music might seem a bit incongruous to the setting and the mood of the play, but I trust Isla’s vision. It is an unusual mix but fingers crossed it works!

Do you think more Cambridge shows should reach out to work with composers?

I know a handful other people who have composed for short films but, apart from big ADC shows, I don’t know anyone who’s composed for a play. It’s great to attach your music to a bigger project, and it has helped me develop as a composer, so I would encourage more directors to consider bringing a composer on board for their projects.

Still, it feels as if fewer people are engaged with electronic music in Cambridge than at some other universities. Obviously there’s a lot of classical music here – and I really like a lot of classical music – but the possibilities of electronic music are endless. It’s so exciting because it imposes so few limits on the creator, and so hopefully increasing numbers of people will get involved in this type of music in particular.

What is next for you in terms of music?

I’m writing music for my short film, Closer, which we are hoping to premiere at Cambridge Shorts next term. It’s a pyschological thriller, so I’m listening a lot to things like Cliff Martinez’s soundtrack for Drive, Disasterpeace’s soundtrack for It Follows, and stuff by more mainstream artists like deadmau5 and ZHU.

Bret’s music will feature in LILY, which is on from Tuesday 29th November to Saturday 3rd December at the Corpus Playroom. You can listen to the EP here: https://soundcloud.com/bretcameron/sets/lily-ep