‘Music to fill my mind but not fight the words’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, GD Harper

My guest this week says he is much concerned with reinvention. He’s spent his life setting himself challenges to embrace new careers, lifestyles, places to live – and the latest of those reinventions is being a novelist. His debut title is a story of 1970s Glasgow and required some daring imaginative reinventions – not least, writing in the voice and psyche of a 22-year-old woman. A soundtrack was essential – Tangerine Dream to soothe and order the brain; Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan and David Bowie to restart the period – and provide other wisdom besides. He is Glyn Harper – writing as GD Harper – and he’s on the Red Blog with his Undercover Soundtrack.

‘Freedom, broken ties and love outside of marriage’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Diana Stevan

My guest this week delved into personal experiences to write her latest novel. In the 1970s she was working on a psychiatric ward where electric shock treatment was taking place. Years later, troubled by what she had seen, she wrote a novel. She turned to music to reawaken her own memories of the time and to create a cast of characters who are lost in the midst of a broken system. She remarks that her Soundtrack is as much about her own inner world as her characters’ – a line that for me is the very essence of the Undercover Soundtrack series. She is Diana Stevan and she’s on the Red Blog with the music that helped her write The Rubber Fence.

‘When I feel like a storm is raging’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Stephanie Carroll

My guest this week grew up in the Mojave desert where rain was a rarity. So a key for her creative space is the sound of wild, wet weather. Sometimes it’s tracks that include storm noises, but she’ll just as easily tune into a rain station at the same time as a piece of music. The sounds go in tandem, whipping up just the right tumult for her writing. So it’s probably not surprising that her work has a Gothic element; she writes what she describes as Victorian and Gilded Age with a Gothic twist. It certainly went down well with USA Book News, who voted her first novel 2013’s best cross-genre title. She is Stephanie Carroll and she’s on the Red Blog with her Undercover Soundtrack.

‘The journey is more important than the destination’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Toni Davidson

My guest this week describes music as ‘a portable environment’. His work patterns have taken him all over the world and he might find himself writing anywhere from a station waiting room to a hotel lobby or a scorching beach. No matter where he finds himself, the music will put him back where he left off. Perhaps unsurprisingly, his novels explore people who are lost, displaced or caught between cultures and he finds their soundtracks in the work of contemporary classical composers (including one of my own favourites, Olafur Arnalds). He is Toni Davidson and he’s on the Red Blog with his Undercover Soundtrack.

‘To make art by the grace of other artists’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Camille Griep

My guest this week has set herself the task of reimagining the Trojan War and she says she couldn’t have done it without music. Her soundtrack has a stirring, epic scale with storming emotional keys, from Florence + the Machine to Thomas Tallis. More intimate pieces by Amanda McBroom and Esthero illuminated the interior lives of her Cressida (renamed Syd) and Cassandra (Cas). She is also a much-decorated writer of short stories and the editor of two cultural journals, Easy Street and The Lascaux Review. Drop by the Red Blog for the Undercover Soundtrack of Camille Griep.

‘Vulnerable and isolated’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Sanjida Kay

My guest this week has been here before. Not in a reincarnation sense; she’s guested on the series, but under a different name. For her latest novel she’s using a pseudonym for a change of direction. She’s written a gritty psychological thriller about a woman who discovers her young daughter is being bullied at school. Her attempts to intervene spark a series of sinister events, played out in the gritty, graffiti-scrawled areas of Bristol. Her soundtrack is full of brooding menace (and includes some of my own favourites, Massive Attack and Tricky). Anyway, come and meet Sanjida Kay on the Red Blog, when she’s sharing her Undercover Soundtrack.

‘When I’m most lost, a song will show the way’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Ryan W Bradley

My guest this week says that music is the key to most of his work. The title of his short story collection, Nothing But The Dead and Dying, came from a line in a Simon and Garfunkel song. All the stories are bound by the landscape of Alaska, where he worked for a while in a construction crew. Ennio Morricone helped him recreate its barren desolation. And when he’s been stuck on a story, even to the extent of giving up, rescue usually comes in the form of a random piece of music. He is Ryan W Bradley and he’s on the Red Blog with his Undercover Soundtrack.

‘Music has informed everything I’ve written’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Iain Maloney

I’d like to bet that many readers of this blog went through a teenage phase where they wrote lyrics. Or is it just me? Well, it’s also my guest this week. He says the lyrics phase was superseded when the urge to create narrative took over, but music remains central to his creative life. It has formed many underlays for his novels, including the shorthand between friends, the backdrop to life events, the tunnel to the past. One major character came alive when he realised that music wasn’t a big deal for her. Funnily enough, a significant musical touchstone is Mogwai, who was cited just a few weeks ago by Philip Miller, one of his stablemates at the imprint Freight Books. There must be something in the water. Anyway, his name is Iain Maloney, and he’s on the Red Blog with his Undercover Soundtrack

‘An earworm of the heart’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Katharine Grant

My guest this week says she would like to be able to play the piano to concert standard, but since she can’t, she uses words as her instrument of enthrallment. Pianos are central to the plot of her latest novel, a historical romance in which four nouveau riche fathers attempt to marry off their daughters by displaying their talents in a music recital. Mayhem ensues, con brio. She says her musical ear guides her writing; Bach helps her to listen to the cadence of words and Purcell reminds her, in the most emotional way, that writing is all about remembering. (Are you guessing that Dido’s Lament might be coming up?) She is Royal Literary Fund Fellow Katharine Grant and she’s on the Red Blog with her Undercover Soundtrack.

‘A cracked but steely song of survival and beauty’ – The Undercover Soundtrack, Philip Miller

My guest this week is a poet and award-winning arts correspondent as well as a literary novelist. His novel is a reckoning with loss and a mystery involving a lost painting, and his musical companions range from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Boards of Canada. He describes BOC’s music as making you feel you might walk into a mirror or meet yourself – which is not only brilliant, it’s a fairly accurate manifesto for the unsettling journey of the book. Even more exciting, I noticed as I downloaded the cover image that the novel is endorsed by one of my favourite mischievously inventive writers, Alasdair Gray. Deep breath. Philip Miller is on the Red Blog with his Undercover Soundtrack.