UNKLE | Lonely Soul
UNKLE’s “Lonely Soul” featuring Richard Ashcroft, how a Mo’ Wax label boss and DJ Shadow created the nine-minute trip-hop epic that became the benchmark for Psyence Fiction in 1996-1998.
Story Behind “Lonely Soul”
When a Northern Soul Met Trip-Hop
James Lavelle was in Los Angeles in 1995 when The Verve’s A Northern Soul entered his life. The album hit him somewhere deep. “When I heard Richard Ashcroft sing it just really hit me in my heart,” Lavelle later told NME. “I wanted to get the same emotion on the record I was making. I just felt that the guy was speaking to me.”
Lavelle was the founder of Mo’ Wax Records, a London label that had become synonymous with the abstract hip-hop and trip-hop scenes of the mid-90s. He’d just brought DJ Shadow on board to produce what would become UNKLE’s debut album, Psyence Fiction. But Lavelle had a specific frustration: “I didn’t want to make weird instrumental hip hop records. We could’ve easily achieved that but I wanted songs. Listening to Richard Ashcroft was a revelation because I thought, ‘If I could bring that ilk of singer in with what I was hearing from Shadow I’ll crack it.’”
The Olympic Sessions
Three months after that revelation, with The Verve on hiatus following A Northern Soul‘s troubled promotional cycle, Ashcroft recorded “Lonely Soul” at Olympic Studios near his Barnes home. DJ Shadow recalls the sessions with a certain detachment: “I didn’t even know at that point The Verve had split up. I can’t remember if James had told me but I was like, ‘Oh, OK. Whatever.’ The impact of a lot of people like Ashcroft and Thom Yorke, fortunately, came later. Not to be rude, but in a way I don’t think we would have asked Richard after the success of ‘Urban Hymns’, ‘cos it would have seemed like we were grabbing the biggest name around.”
Ashcroft arrived with charisma and specific ideas. “He wanted to do a Marvin Gaye-type vocal, an ‘answer back’ type thing,” Shadow recalled. “He was there for about an hour-and-a-half. He did it in one take and, even though he came back twice, it was that guide vocal we ended up using.”
According to Lavelle, “Lonely Soul” became the benchmark for every other track on the album. “For someone like myself who hasn’t exactly got a rock history there was something about it that transcended the music. It was the attitude. Richard had this raw strength of character and he gave a soul to it that I hadn’t heard for ages in somebody’s voice.”
“Lonely Soul” Recording and Production Details
Building the Nine-Minute Journey
DJ Shadow composed the music for “Lonely Soul,” constructing a sprawling nearly nine-minute landscape of trip-hop beats, atmospheric synths, and carefully layered samples. The track samples Lionel Morton’s “Fearless Fred’s Amazing Animal Band” from the children’s television program Play School, a characteristically deep crate-dig from Shadow’s signature production style.
The production builds slowly, with Ashcroft’s vocals entering over deep bass and nebulous drums. Then, around the five-minute mark, the strings arrive. Wil Malone, who had arranged the strings on The Verve’s “Bitter Sweet Symphony,” handled the orchestration here as well, conducting The London Session Orchestra at CTS Studios in London. The string arrangement was based on his composition “Concerto for Strings and Beats,” giving the track’s climax its overwhelming emotional weight.
Multi-Studio Sessions Across Two Continents
Like much of Psyence Fiction, “Lonely Soul” came together across multiple studios in London and California. Ashcroft’s vocals were recorded at Milo Studios in London. The strings were tracked at CTS Studios. Jim Abbiss mixed the track at Metropolis Studios in London. Sie Medway-Smith served as recording engineer alongside UNKLE themselves.
The September 1996 recording of “Lonely Soul” predated most of the album’s other sessions. It would take nearly two more years to complete Psyence Fiction, with contributions from Thom Yorke, Mike D, Kool G Rap, Badly Drawn Boy, and others arriving over subsequent months. But “Lonely Soul” set the template: rock vocalist meeting trip-hop production, with orchestral arrangements bridging the two worlds.
Notes About “Lonely Soul” by UNKLE
Release Date: August 24, 1998 (UK album release)
Duration: 8:53-8:56 (varies by edition)
Genre: Trip-Hop / Electronic / Alternative Rock
Album: Psyence Fiction (Track 5)
Featured Artist: Richard Ashcroft (The Verve)
Writers: Richard Ashcroft, Wil Malone, DJ Shadow (J. Davis)
Producer: DJ Shadow, UNKLE
String Arranger/Conductor: Wil Malone
Mixer: Jim Abbiss
Label: Mo’ Wax (MW085CD)
Notable Sync: The Beach (2000 film soundtrack)
UNKLE “Lonely Soul” Era Band Details
Album Details
Album: Psyence Fiction
Release Date: August 24, 1998 (UK), September 29, 1998 (US)
Label: Mo’ Wax (UK), Mo’ Wax/London Records (US)
Producers: UNKLE (James Lavelle, DJ Shadow)
Recording Period: September 1996 - early 1998
Chart Performance: #4 UK Albums Chart, #107 Billboard 200, #1 Heatseekers Albums
Artwork: Futura 2000
Personnel (for “Lonely Soul”)
James Lavelle - UNKLE, Producer
DJ Shadow (Josh Davis) - Music, Producer, Composer
Richard Ashcroft - Lead Vocals, Lyrics
Wil Malone - String Arrangements, Conductor, Composer
The London Session Orchestra - Strings
Jim Abbiss - Mixer
Sie Medway-Smith - Recording Engineer
Album Recording Details
Vocals recorded at Milo Studios (London)
Strings recorded at CTS Studios (London)
Mixed at Metropolis Studios (London)
Other Psyence Fiction sessions at: The Site (San Rafael, CA), Record Plant (Hollywood), Strongroom (London), RAK Studios (London), Matrix (London)
Album includes collaborations with: Thom Yorke (Radiohead), Mike D (Beastie Boys), Kool G Rap, Jason Newsted (Metallica), Mark Hollis (Talk Talk), Badly Drawn Boy, Alice Temple, Ian Brown
Interesting Facts About “Lonely Soul”
The Benchmark Track
“Lonely Soul” holds a unique position in the Psyence Fiction narrative: it was recorded first and became the standard against which every other collaboration was measured. When Stereogum revisited the album on its 20th anniversary, they described Ashcroft as being “at his ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’ commercial peak, drowning in an ocean of breaks on nine-minute centerpiece ‘Lonely Soul.’”
The collaboration happened before Urban Hymns turned Ashcroft into one of the biggest names in British music. By the time Psyence Fiction arrived in August 1998, Ashcroft was everywhere. But the recording predated that success by nearly two years, capturing something rawer, a singer between bands rather than a superstar checking in for a guest spot.
From Psyence Fiction to The Beach
The track found a second life when director Danny Boyle included it on the soundtrack to The Beach (2000), his Leonardo DiCaprio-starring adaptation of Alex Garland’s novel. Boyle had used UNKLE’s music before and would continue working with Lavelle, eventually hiring him to score the FX series Trust in 2018. As Lavelle later recalled of Boyle: “Danny had used quite a lot of UNKLE stuff over the years. The closing track in The Beach was ‘Lonely Soul.’”
The film soundtrack version brought the track to a wider audience beyond trip-hop circles. The Beach soundtrack also featured contributions from Moby, Blur, Underworld, and All Saints, but “Lonely Soul” served as its emotional closer. At the 2014 Meltdown festival, which Lavelle curated at Southbank Centre, ESKA performed “Lonely Soul” live, giving the track “a soulful new take” according to reviews of the evening’s UNKLE Redux performance.
Common Questions
Q: Who sings on “Lonely Soul” by UNKLE? A: Richard Ashcroft of The Verve provides lead vocals. He recorded the track in September 1996 at Milo Studios in London, reportedly completing the guide vocal in a single take that ended up being used on the final version.
Q: What album is “Lonely Soul” from? A: “Lonely Soul” appears on Psyence Fiction, UNKLE’s debut album released in August 1998 on Mo’ Wax Records. It was the first album produced by the James Lavelle and DJ Shadow incarnation of UNKLE.
Q: Who arranged the strings on “Lonely Soul”? A: Wil Malone arranged and conducted the strings, performed by The London Session Orchestra at CTS Studios. Malone had also arranged the strings on The Verve’s “Bitter Sweet Symphony,” making his collaboration with Ashcroft a familiar pairing.
Q: How long is “Lonely Soul”? A: The track runs approximately 8:53 to 8:56 depending on the edition. It’s one of the longest tracks on Psyence Fiction, building from atmospheric trip-hop into an orchestral crescendo over its nearly nine-minute runtime.
Q: What movie features “Lonely Soul”? A: The track appears on the soundtrack to Danny Boyle’s The Beach (2000), serving as the film’s closing song. This placement introduced the track to audiences beyond the trip-hop scene.