MARCONI UNION Discuss Upcoming Album THE FEAR OF NEVER LANDING

After two decades of shaping the contours of ambient and electronic music, Marconi Union return with their most emotionally resonant work to date. The Fear of Never Landing, out June 6 via Just Music, is a 55-minute, uninterrupted sonic voyage that navigates the fragile line between anxiety and release. Born from creative uncertainty and reignited passion, the album unfolds in nine movements—each one a textured meditation on disconnection, stillness, and the quiet urge to let go. As they unveil the second single, Silence Is Gliding, we sat down with Jamie Crossley and Duncan Meadows to talk about creative survival, rediscovering joy, and why silence might be the ultimate escape hatch from modern life.

“Silence Is Gliding” feels like a moment of surrender—what inspired the idea of ‘switching off the engines’ and freeing yourself from everyday noise?

We don't tend to write music with a goal in mind. “Switching off the engines” is a description of our emotional response to the finished piece. Everyday noise could be whatever sounds exist in someone's environment, but you can't remove all noise so it's more about temporarily replacing it, or blocking it out. 

You’ve described The Fear of Never Landing as a 55-minute sonic journey in nine movements. What drew you to structuring the album as one continuous piece?

We first used the idea in our Studio Sessions series, where we used a sort of DJ-style crossfade to join together the individual tracks. It's not quite a simple as moving between one track and the next and for this new album we had to think about the overall structure in order to create a seamless listening experience. Some of the tracks have relationships to each other, and although they aren't always presented back-to-back we thought that a continuous arrangement suited the music and helps keep the listener in the moment. 

You mentioned creative struggles during the making of the album—even questioning the band’s future. What helped you push through, and how did the Downhill Motion live soundtrack performance change things?

Creative struggles aren't new for us or anyone else but this time it felt a little harder to get over. Ultimately we want to make music and we'll do anything it takes to get there. The Downhill Motion experience helped by showing us that we could work with a narrower range of equipment. In the past we've sometimes given ourselves more to choose from in terms of technology, particularly software. Downhill Motion also gave us an opportunity to try out new ideas, some of which evolved into music on the new album. 

From Weightless to this new record, your music often sits at the intersection of ambience, emotion, and science. How has your relationship with sound—and its impact on listeners—evolved over the years?

We've always been clear about what our interest in music is: it's about trying to make music that resonates with us on an emotional level. Ambient is only one part of our sound, although obviously it's something we're mostly associated with. We're not concerned with the science side, we rely on our instincts and gut reaction. But in term of sound we're always trying to improve how we do things. 

The album title, The Fear of Never Landing, is striking. Is that a metaphor for creative limbo, emotional unrest, or something else entirely?

Yes, all of the above really. We each have our own interpretation of it and we hope that everyone else can also take their own meaning from it. We don't often like to be too direct or overt, a certain amount of ambiguity is good.