Ascension Day

What started as a celebration of Talk Talk has since developed into an inspired art-rock collective. As Held By Trees release their second studio album, Hinterland, bandleader David Joseph discusses taking inspiration from the British coastland, guiding the project in a new direction and assembling this record's musical cast, which includes the late Mark Hollis's son, Charlie.

- Julian Marszalek

The way that Held By Trees founder, composer and producer David Joseph tells it, Bournemouth – his hometown and from where he speaks with Prog – is the heartland of British prog.

“King Crimson formed here, Andy Summers spent his childhood here and more recently, there’s Galahad, Big Big Train and us,” he reasons.

“In a sense, we are part of that lineage,” Joseph continues. “There’s not a community as such but there is a knowing wink about how there’s something in the water around here.”

So, while other areas would argue against Joseph’s claim, he does make a persuasive case for the coastal town and its surroundings areas playing a central role in the creation of Hinterland, the second full-length release from Held By Trees and the follow-up to 2022 debut album, Solstice. Created as a spa town in the early 1800s, Bournemouth remains fairly isolated thanks to the surrounding areas of the New Forest and the heathland that envelopes it. Devoid of a motorway and heavy traffic thundering through the Dorset countryside, the land that inspired Thomas Hardy has had a similar effect on Joseph.

“The landscape has definitely had an influence on the music,” says Joseph. “I’m lucky having grown up by the New Forest, the Purbeck Hills and the Jurassic Coast. There's a kind of quiet here.”

Pondering the inspiration behind the creation of Hinterland, Joseph continues, “It was born out of regularly walking the paths and byways right on the edge of Bournemouth where it bleeds into the countryside. I've always had a romantic attachment to these areas that aren’t completely urban and they aren’t completely rural. It’s allegorical of the places that I’ve been to internally, such as departure and arrival, and faith and doubt.”

"Hinterland was born out of regularly walking the paths and byways right on the edge of Bournemouth where it bleeds into the countryside."