For years, British writer and producer Neon Pilgrim has helped bring some of television’s most celebrated dramas to audiences around the world. Through UK production company Two Brothers Pictures, he has worked on acclaimed series including The Missing, Liar, The Tourist, Fleabag, and The Assassin, building a career in storytelling that has reached millions of viewers.
Now he is turning the page with the release of Invisible Things, a debut album that has quietly taken shape over many years.
Having written songs since the age of 12, Pilgrim recorded the album in the English countryside with Grammy-winning producer Dom Morley. The record features an accomplished lineup of collaborators including Damon Minchella, Jason McGerr of Death Cab for Cutie, Ed Harcourt and Amber Wilson, bringing to life songs that have evolved over many years.
While television has defined much of his professional career, music has remained his first creative passion. Invisible Things brings together decades of songwriting in a collection that is both intimate and expansive.
Rather than following a single narrative, the album explores the unseen forces that shape our lives. It begins with the limitless imagination of childhood, that feeling that another world exists just beyond our own, and follows those invisible companions into adulthood where they become memories, grief, hope, fear, love and the emotional ties that connect families, friendships and the people closest to us.
“The album is called Invisible Things. Put simply it’s zeroing in on the imagination we all have in childhood – a world beyond our world that seems instantly accessible. But also it’s about those invisible things we experience as adults. Those things we don’t see but we believe in, or the things between us that again we can’t see but mean everything.”
Each song approaches those themes from a different perspective.
‘Peggy’, written for Pilgrim’s goddaughter, imagines the endless possibilities waiting for a child at the very beginning of life. ‘Small Black Suit’ reflects on miscarriage and the loss of something that, as the songwriter describes it, “was never really there” in the physical sense. ‘All The Colours’ captures the transformative rush of young love, while ‘Heartbeat’ explores the irresistible pull towards something beautiful that also has the power to hurt.
The astronaut that appears throughout the album artwork has become the visual heart of the project. Inspired by the chorus of ‘Peggy’, it represents the optimism that defines childhood and the belief that anything is possible before life gradually narrows our horizons. That same feeling runs through the album, searching for moments of hope and euphoria even within its more reflective songs.
Although many of the songs were written over several years, the project finally came together after Pilgrim connected with Morley. Together they assembled a group of musicians whose performances preserve the intimacy of the original ideas while expanding them into richly textured recordings.
For Pilgrim, releasing Invisible Things marks the beginning of an entirely new creative chapter. While his television work has reached audiences around the world, music offers something much more immediate and personal, creating a direct connection between songwriter and listener.
“Making TV shows is so different from this, and it’s exciting to do something where I’m starting from square one, in a completely new field, with a whole bunch of different views. Mainly I hope some people find something in the songs and it does something for them. If some people listen and enjoy it then I’ll keep doing it. And I love doing it.”
With Invisible Things, Neon Pilgrim introduces himself not as a television creator stepping into music, but as a songwriter finally sharing the work that has accompanied him since childhood. It is the beginning of a new chapter, one built on songs that explore the invisible emotions, memories and connections that shape every life.
Listen below:
