Orcadian singer and guitarist Aidan Moodie, known to many as the frontman of Scottish folk favourites Gnoss and guitarist in ‘Celtic- supergroup’ Manran, embarks upon a highly anticipated solo career with a genre-fluid first single this Friday titled ‘Welcome’.
Those anxious to hear the results can do so today as we premiere the accompanying music video by visual artist Tom Hunter which was shot across the Orkney mainland, capturing scenes of travel, winter, wildlife, and spaces that once were homes. The video is described as a nostalgia-soaked ride through Narnia shot on a Sony VX2000 and it lends itself perfectly to ‘Welcome’, a song written during a great time of uncertainty.
“I wrote Welcome as a response to the UK chancellor advising creatives that they’d best find other lines of work. I’m not sure I intended to write this way, the song just formed itself in the hours after that news broke. I was considering quitting music for good at the time and I guess this song kind of channeled that uncertainty.
“I was thinking about change; how it’s never truly good or bad, how it only is, and how it’s constant. Negative and positive at the same time and completely never-ending.”
‘Welcome’ sets Aidan’s folk-rooted songwriting in the midst of drum machines, distorted vocals, delay-soaked synth lines, and booming analogue percussion parts. Lyrics that would find homes in traditional ballads are deliberately placed alongside soundscapes inspired by indie, alt, and electropop; Bon Iver, Sylvan Esso, Sam Amidon, Phoebe Bridgers.
Aidan:
“My aim with this project is to set my folk-rooted songwriting against unconventional musical backdrops, to give my songs a home amongst sounds associated with alternative genres.
“For this track we built a percussion loop, sparkled a riff from a KORG MS-20 through a delay pedal, and set some distorted octave vocals to dance together, all moving around the core of my double-tracked Martin J-40.
With this single – and my subsequent solo releases – I’m hoping to get people thinking about what it is that makes a folk song.“
Although we haven’t all been in the same situation as Aidan found himself in, Welcome is still a song most of us can associate with. Who hasn’t felt some trepidation of an unknown future and longed for those nostalgic long summer days again when we were carefree. I can think of many such moments when I would love to freeze time for a day to allow me to linger longer. We are still left with the glow of those memories and Welcome seems to gather strength from those moments, something underpinned by the poetic lyrics, musical setting and video. I can imagine an audience in the not too distant future singing along to those anthemic lines – And the road sang “Welcome, leave it all behind”.
A bold new future awaits him.
‘Welcome’ was recorded, produced, and mixed by Ewen White at his home studio in the West- End of Glasgow, and mastered by Chris Waite at Gran’s House Studio.
You can listen to ‘Welcome’ on streaming services from this Friday, 16th April.
Pre-save: https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/aidanmoodie/welcome
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Photo Credit: Rory Barnes