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Sean MacLeod on Music, Microtonality and Transforming the Individual

Singer-songwriter, composer, author and producer Sean MacLeod enters a chapter with That’s When the Earth Becomes a Star, released through Wake Up Records in May 2026. Written alongside its experimental companion album, We Don’t We that We Don’t See, the record emerged from the practice-based PhD in Musical Composition that gave MacLeod time to investigate microtonality, unconventional tuning and possibilities. Yet his guiding instinct remains rooted in the direct appeal of a memorable song. On Inside Out, the album’s third single, he explores individuality, personal responsibility and the pursuit of happiness within an increasingly fragmented, technology-driven society.

In this conversation, MacLeod discusses the cosmic transformation imagined by the album, the tension between community and hyper-individualism, and the role music might play in reconnecting people. He also reflects on artistic responsibility, experimental composition and why, beneath the grand ideas, everything still begins with picking up a guitar and finding a tune.

“Inside Out” is the third single from That’s When the Earth Becomes a Star. What made this particular song an important doorway into the album’s wider ideas?

In the first place, I just liked the song. I think for the most part it’s a very well-structured song, and it brings the listener on a musical journey. But it also approaches the theme of individuality, which I think is central to the album. The album is very much dealing with finding our own true happiness in this world, both on an individual and community level. I don’t think individuals can really any more look to their institutions for this (” No authority” as it say is the song ) and really its down to people on an individual level to find their own happiness and work together to bring about a collective happiness. Not an easy thing to do though.

The title That’s When the Earth Becomes a Star is both poetic and mysterious. What does that image represent to you, and how does it connect with the album’s themes of transformation?

Well, that’s really the whole idea. It’s a mysterious and poetic transformation of society. The revolution is a cosmic revolution which takes place inside the individual and outside, but I think each individual needs to transform themselves- to the point where their earthly consciousness becomes a cosmic consciousness and then the Earth itself can be transformed. It sounds like a very grand Idea, which of course it is, and possibly something that will take a very long time to attain, but the seeds can be planted now. – you did ask 🙂

How did completing a PhD in Musical Composition change the way you approached songwriting—and did you ever have to resist letting academic knowledge overpower instinct or emotion?

No academic knowledge didn’t get in the way. My PhD was a practice-based PhD, so it was more about doing the work rather than thinking about it. The songs from this album ‘That’s When the Earth Becomes a Star’ and another album ‘We Don’t We that We Don’t See’ came out of that PhD, more or less. The PhD was in some ways just something I wanted to do, but I think the best thing about it was it just gave me time and focused me in a certain direction, which gave me a lot of material to write songs about.

Your music combines memorable pop melodies with unusual harmonic ideas and subtle microtonality. How do you introduce that complexity without disrupting the listener’s immediate connection to a song?

The PhD was primarily focused on microtonal music, so I spent about 4 years studying microtones and tunings and then another two years writing about them. Well, 1 year writing about them and another rewriting about them :). I made two albums as I mentioned, which came out of that work. In one album the microtones are rather subtle ( e.g. in songs like I Know Not you can here them in the sonic texture of the music but they don’t get in the way of the song’s melody they just create a slight jarring effect which makes the song a little more interesting- although to some people it might sound out of tune but not to the point that you can’t listen to it – hopefully) on the other album the tuning is very much altered and it more difficult to listen to but having said that once the listener becomes familiar with the tuning it doesn’t sound odd. It’s a bit like going to a different country and adapting to the culture.

The album examines alienation and hyper-individualism in a technology-driven culture. Do you see music as a possible way of rebuilding the sense of community that modern life can erode?

Yes, I think music plays a very important part in that transformation. I think to a large extent we will eventually need to get back to an almost acoustic music – but it will be an acoustic music that is profoundly different to what we are familiar with today. There are very interesting developments in acoustic instrument making today, but they are not commercially driven, so most people won’t know much about them. I think the move toward microtonal music will develop over time and will add greater dimensions to music in general. But it clear that modern technology although useful ( for example it allows me to do this interview) it essentially is breaking down the community ( we are not having a direct interaction through the interview) and it seems people are getting more and more drawn into their own universe – a kind of hyper -individualism where people can not interact so well anymore with other people- they are intolerant, disinterested etc.

Your lyrics often explore spiritual questions without offering simple answers. What questions about identity, meaning or belief were you wrestling with while writing this record?

Well, the simple answer is that each person needs to do their own work, if they are so inclined. Institutions are not particularly interested in individual transformation ( that’s why the song says ‘liquidation of the individual’) because you can not control an enlightened person, and enlightened people know that we must come together as individuals and create the world we want to live in. At the moment I think the world is primarily in the hands of a very small group of people ( the 1%, if you like) that dictate to the rest. So I think the underlying theme is really self-transformation, and politically I think it means anarchy. Anarchy in its positive sense is when the individual is called upon to take responsibility for their own lives and work responsibly with other individuals and not let those who are not necessarily interested in self-transformation but more interested in maintaining the status quo and power.

Influences including the Beatles, the Beach Boys and Motown can be heard alongside grunge, synth-pop and contemporary classical music. How do you transform such a broad musical vocabulary into something recognisably your own?

Well, the simple answer to that is that I don’t know that I do transform all that into something recognisably my own. That’s, I suppose, for others to decide. I think most songwriters will tell you they can’t really assess their own music in those terms. Usually for me I just record or release a song if I feel I like it. I try and experiment with the harmonic structures a lot. I also try to find chord progressions that usually move between different keys, and I hope a good melody can develop with it . I think for my music the underlying harmony seems to be the most interesting part, and so that’s maybe what makes the songs unique. It can also make them more expansive too. The songs become big songs, and that can become a bit much for the listener, so I do also try and write songs where the chord progressions are more simple, but that means the melody needs to be stronger, and I find that more difficult. In terms of production and arrangement, I try to experiment too by finding interesting ideas in certain genres and applying them to the song. Like I might borrow something from Steve Reich’s minimalist approach and add layers of instrumentation in different time signatures over the song and blend it in, or layers of microtones and blend it in to the sonic fabric of the arrangement, and hopefully it works

This album has a more experimental companion record. When you were writing, how did you decide which ideas belonged within melodic pop songs and which needed a less conventional form?

I think if anyone listened to the two albums they’d clearly hear which songs are more traditional pop songs and which are more avant-garde. The more experimental ones are mostly instrumental, and those that aren’t have a more spoken-word feel to the voice- mainly because I can’t sing microtones very well at present 🙂

Your work as a music historian has involved studying artists whose music shaped popular culture. Has that research changed your understanding of what an artist owes—or does not owe—to an audience?

That’s an interesting question. In a way, I don’t think an artist owes anything to anyone except to keep producing interesting work and not to patronise your audience. I think groups like the Beatles or Brian Wilson explored with their music and their audiences trusted them to take them somewhere different.

After years devoted to scholarship and artistic development, do these two albums feel like a return, a reinvention, or the beginning of an entirely new phase in your creative life?

I don’t see them as a new phase or reinvention. I don’t feel these songs are that much different to songs I was writing when I was a teenager. I still just pick up a guitar and hope a song will come. That part has nothing to do with me. If I’m lucky to get a good idea, be it a chord progression or a lyric or a riff or something that I can develop, then I can hopefully bring the idea to completion. If I don’t get an idea, then I can not do much. So that’s always been the process. I think I’ve learned more about music and come across more stuff I can borrow from or just rob from, which helps in terms of arrangements and production and gives more possibilities for experimentation, but essentially I still do the same thing I always did – pick up a guitar and try and write a tune which I hope people will like. Even though the conversation began with lofty ideas about transforming the individual and society and all that, and yes, that’s very important to me, but also what’s just as important is that we come back to the simple things like writing a simple little song that everyone can sing along to and just simply enjoy.

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