Musical bouquet of genres

London-based musician Charles Prest gives back to the kingdom he loves and still calls home through a spectrum of sounds in his debut album, Noon Garden.

The 32-year-old Briton with Nigerian and Jamaican roots is delighted to see his 10-track musical garden of genres come to life, after years of planning, with most of his songs inspired by Bahrain.

“I started sketching out ideas for the album way back in 2014 and didn’t really finish it until early 2020,” said the video editor based in Forest Hill, South London. “It took a while to figure out the direction and voice I wanted for the album and once I had worked that out, I spent the last year or so learning to mix and get it to sound the way I wanted.

“I’d say the sound is ultimately pop but coated with influences and genres from all over. I listen to a lot of music, new and old as well as from all over the globe, and it all definitely funnelled its way onto the record in some form. I wanted this debut to have some roots in my upbringing in Bahrain and to showcase a lot of things I took from that time in my life.”

While Charles was born in London, he moved to the kingdom not long after and attended St Christopher’s School all the way up to his A’Levels. He then moved to London to study film at Kingston University where he completed his Bachelor’s and, subsequently, Master’s in arts.

During his time in the kingdom, he immersed himself in the island’s culture as well as the diversity around him from soaking up the different sounds to playing shows with the Flamingods, a four-piece alternative rock band from London and Bahrain, founded by Kamal Rasool in 2010. Their sound blends western psychedelia with pop and Eastern musical influences, and has been described as ‘Exotic Psychedelia’.

“With Bahrain being such a multicultural melting pot, it made me want to seek out and experience all the places everyone had come from,” said Charles, who plays guitar, bass, synthesiser keyboards, percussion, and more recently, the Turksih baglama saz. “London felt like a natural place to start the next part of my life after school in Bahrain. I have family here and many school friends from Bahrain, including members of Flamingods, who moved over for university. It has been a rollercoaster joyride traversing London’s art and music scene over the last 12 years.

“Bahrain, however, was honestly the best upbringing I could have asked for. It’s a vibrant country where everyone is generally super nice, are up for hanging out and doing things. The weather makes you want to get out of the house and be active, which I loved to do.

“Growing up with friends from all over really helped my world view from a young age and realise that there’s so much commonality between cultures and that there’s so much to learn from one another.

“I didn’t write this album with any particular message in my mind other than subtly encouraging people to be open minded, explorative and to look after one another.”

According to Progressive Artists, a London-based booking agency, his album is ‘an exotic psych-pop odyssey drawing on worldly sounds from the likes of Francis Bebey and Dur Dur Band to Shintaro Sakamoto’. It features an array of styles including African Disco, Funk, Exotica and Psychedelia.

His personal favourite of the album is the opener and titular track – Beulah Spa.

“It really encapsulates what I was going for with the record as whole, with a lot of genre blending, trying to connect the cultural dots between western and eastern music and build a big sonic landscape for the listener to get lost in,” said Charles.

“Near my family home in south London there’s an area called Beulah Spa that I’d always pass by on my local bus route to Brixton. It felt and sounded like such an exotic place for anywhere, especially for London! It just stuck with me and conjured up imagery of a place where the listener can unwind and take in the sounds of the album.”

He also named two tracks Budaiya and Blue Jurdab, which are places where he lived in Bahrain.

“Blue Jurdab was the name of the first compound my parents moved to in Sitra around the time I was born and I spent most of my time living and growing up in Budaiya,” he added. “I just really like the idea of amplifying these places that were such a big part of my childhood and for the people outside of Bahrain.”

The album will drop on April 1 in record shops and will be available to stream on music platforms such as Apple Music, Spotify, Deezer, Tidal and more.

Charles is already working on his next release, but in the meantime he’ll be touring this album for the rest of the year and getting ready for the next Flamingods album, which he says is also coming out soon. He hopes that he can do some shows in Bahrain for anyone who enjoys the music.

“I love and miss Bahrain,” said Charles. “I am looking forward to being back in Bahrain at some point.”

For details, follow

@noon.garden Instagram.