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8 August 2024

Exposed Magazine

Words: Mark Finnigan

The chances are you won’t know or have heard of Michael Somerset Ward, but I guarantee you will have heard his music. He has been involved in the international music scene for 40 years, writing huge hits for megastars like Take That and Alison Moyet, amongst others, during his career.

An eclectic artist who has been heavily involved in music genres as diverse as dance and industrial music, he has had regular chart action with the likes of Róisín Murphy and Lady Blackbird while being a contemporary of well-known Sheffield superstars Jarvis Cocker and Richard Hawley.

Interestingly, his collective works outsell his more renowned peers. So why isn’t he better known? The simple answer is that he hasn’t sought fame and notoriety.

Additionally, songwriters rarely become as well-known as the artists who perform their songs. However, Somerset Ward is no stranger to performance, having fronted his own major record label band Floy Joy in the 1980s, a band that should have been massive but mysteriously didn’t quite get the recognition they deserved.

It is a Floy Joy song written by Somerset Ward, ‘Weak in the Presence of Beauty’, that gave Alison Moyet her biggest-selling hit with sales of four million around the world.

Fast forward through four decades of constant music collaborations to 2024, and Somerset Ward deserves some recognition – not mega stardom or mass adulation, that wouldn’t suit his style, but just acknowledgment that he has made substantial cultural contributions across a wide range of musical genres.

He is not just a mainstream artist; his real love is the work he does on the edge of commercial music. Take, for example, his latest album release by one of his many projects, Mzylkypop, entitled Threnodies and Ad Hocs. He wrote all the tracks, and under his leadership, he directs a collective of vocalists and musicians with stunning results.

The tracks veer from straight pop to the experimental. It is an absolute banger of an album: accessible but also daring and challenging at the same time. He quite rightly believes it deserves to be heard by a wider audience. This latest release is a follow-up to the band’s debut album four years ago, which received rave reviews. Half the songs are sung by a Polish-born singer, Sylwia Anna Drwal, whom Somerset Ward discovered singing at a local pop-up venue.

On the other songs, he uses several guest vocalists from a plethora of music genres, all with a link to his musical CV. The list of contributors reads like a who’s who of the alternative music scene. On one hand, there’s Cabaret Voltaire’s Stephen Mallinder, then there’s Clock DVA’s Adi Newton on the other.

Elsewhere, Peter Hope, previously from The Box, and the legendary Barry Adamson, formerly of Magazine, make inspired contributions. Finally, from the more mainstream music world, there’s David Was, a purveyor of perfect pop in the 80s with his brother in the band Was (Not Was). Not many musicians could rustle up a guestlist like that.

How did he get such an impressive list of contributors? “I have known these guys for years and we have worked together at various points,” he explains, before going on to relate the story of him as an unknown musician flying to America to track down the legendary Don Was (David’s brother) in the early 80s with just a studio address and little more than a wing and a prayer.

Amazingly, he successfully located him, and a fruitful working relationship and friendship blossomed. That’s just one story from Somerset Ward’s musical life. There are many others, involving a lot of household names. He is thinking of writing his memoirs, and judging from the stories he told me, it could be a best-seller – although he might need to run it past a lawyer first!

As well as repeated excursions into the pop world, he has written and recorded a number of short stories. One such piece, A Dog’s Story, found its way to Maxine Peake, who insisted on reading it. Additionally, he has provided soundtracks for Radio 4 drama series, most notably Song of The Reed with Mark Rylance and The Arabian Nights. Then there is the unreleased Norse saga, Sola – a stunning, evocative and mystical work, complete with a soundtrack of original songs in a Norse style.

If all that isn’t enough, his current working project is his band, The Consumptives, a combo put together to perform a musical he has penned about the notorious Sheffield thief and police killer, Charlie Peace. It is a remarkable and original piece using music written in a Victoriana style and an inspired plotline with a sci-fi element which could easily be a Dr. Who episode. The result is a chilling, gothic and atmospheric piece which enhances this famous Sheffield tale.

With such an eclectic career in music, which has involved writing songs in many different styles for many different people, Somerset Ward is rightly proud of the work he has done – and why shouldn’t he be? After all, it pays the bills! He stands by his extensive back catalogue.

“They are good songs, but what I’m doing now with Mzylkypop and The Consumptives, that is for ‘me’. It’s the first time in 40 years I have done something specifically for me in music.”

Despite his massive involvement in mainstream music, his heart has always been with the more alternative side of music. He is a craftsman; songwriting is his craft, and he is very good at it and, refreshingly, he is not afraid to say so. Michael Somerset Ward is not a musical snob and perhaps that is why he has never been seen, nor does he want to be seen, as part of the Sheffield scene now or in the past. However, it is time we recognised his talent and his legacy.

Mzylkypop’s album Threnodies and Ad Hocs is out now on Discus Records. The Consumptives will be playing dates in November.