Mark Edwards

Mark Edwards

Mark Edwards is a musician, journalist, composer and multi-instrumentalist who makes instrumental music, including material used for Guitar Hero and related projects. He works with WaveGroup Sound and has recorded music under his own name.

Music and style

Edwards’ debut album, Balance, consists of ten instrumental pieces built in a largely beat-free style, combining glassy guitar lines with minimalist keyboard parts. The record is written and recorded in his north London home between 2003 and 2007, and it uses real instruments and one drum machine played in real time. Edwards avoids computers, sampling and sequencing, and describes making music as a reductive process in which he removes material rather than adding more.

His music draws on ambient and minimalist approaches. The influences around Balance include Brian Eno, Dave Pajo, Air and Harold Budd. The closing track, Noel Gallagher Lives His Dream, references Oasis-style chord progressions, while the opening track, When The Space Unfolds, reflects his interest in space between notes.

Career background

Before releasing music publicly, Edwards works on the sidelines of the industry and is content to do so after seeing how difficult the music business can be for bands and artists. He is involved in a charity project with the viola player James Topham, whom he meets while helping out with the Warchild project and who has previously been assistant to Brian Eno. Edwards records privately on a 4-track recorder before a track from those sessions, There Is No Hope In Perfection, is played on national radio, which leads to further interest.

Release of Balance

After that interest builds, Edwards signs to the label Spokes. Balance is presented as a collection that moves between ambient, post-rock and electronica with prominent guitar. Edwards describes it as friendly music rather than something that should be seen as difficult simply because it has no words.