nside a rehearsal space scented with essential oils, a new, unlikely electro-art-pop duo are preparing for their live debut. Called Sam Morton, they are the collaborative pairing of the twice-Oscar-nominated actor, director and writerand the celebrated producer, songwriter and boss of XL Recordings Richard Russell.
“I’m not comfortable talking about that, I just love to talk about the music,” Morton tells me, steadily. What follows is 15 minutes of awkward, three-way bewilderment. I ask what fundamentally connects them in spirit; Russell merely suggests: “A way to look at things.” Perhaps, I venture, it is cultural: both were born in the 70s, their careers forged in the maverick-minded 90s, when they were rave enthusiasts and uncompromising DIY spirits.
‘I was owned by the state’: Samantha Morton on foster care, political carnage and the time Robbie Coltrane paid for her curryA profound sadness permeates these often hypnotically ghostly songs. “I guess music making is a healing thing,” decides Russell. “Who knew? No one gets into music thinking: ‘Oh, this’ll be healing!’ But it turns out that“This was creative rebirth for me,” nods Morton. “All art is healing. I feel like we’re in the business of wellbeing.
Acting allowed her to transcend those hardships. Having excelled at the Central Junior Television Workshop from the age of 13, at 16 she headed to London. She was soon a fledgling TV actor, playing a teenage sex worker in Band of Gold, where she says she gained a “difficult” reputation for refusing inappropriate nudity requests, objections that she would be applauded for making today.
Russell has survived his own life-changing traumas. By the late 90s, after the Prodigy album The Fat of the Land had reached No 1 across the world, XL had become one of the most successful independent record labels on Earth, even before it signed Adele. Russell, a teenage hip-hop obsessive whose career began working in record shops, was overwhelmed, suffered an identity crisis and experienced depression.