Last month, we shared the news of Piers Faccini‘s new album ‘Shapes of the Fall’ due for release on 2 April via his own label Beating Drum and Nø Førmat. That news was accompanied by lead single ‘The Real Way Out’ which we chose as our Song of the Day.
The album reflects on the duality of human nature, which part of our nature will prevail in the modern world, a theme which extends to the latest single ‘Foghorn Calling‘, a percussively driven song inspired by trance traditions – think the Gnaoua Blues of Majid Bakkas with Francesco Turissi on the frame drum. A powerful combination of sounds and influences, which, under the masterful guidance of Piers Faccini makes it another one of our Songs of the Day. The song is accompanied by an excellent animation by Piers on which he shares more on below. A man of many talents…
Piers Facini on ‘Foghorn Calling’:
“I spent a few days drawing all the individual pictures using charcoal on paper and then put them all together with the music to build a visual narrative for the animation.
The song is inspired by Mediterranean trance traditions from southern Italy to the Maghreb, the foghorn is sounding the alarm of the earth’s potential environmental collapse and the devastating loss of biodiversity.
The trance is a call for positive action and healing, to step out of the darkness toward the light. The beauty of stop motion animation is actually how few images you need to create the illusion of movement. With the individual human and animal heads, the sequences were often 4 or 5 images long and then looped. 2 with the eyes open, varying the background and changing some details in the pupils of the eyes and then 2 more with eyes half open and then shut! The same principle worked for the dancers. Having them turn in circles allowed me to create a mesmerising animated loop. It never ceases to amaze me when we watch this kind of animation technique how the brain compensates for the missing information between the images of the turning figure to make it so believable.”
Pre-Order ‘Shapes Of The Fall’ here: https://idol.lnk.to/ShapesoftheFall