It’s been a while since we last featured Bristol-based musician and songwriter Martin Callingham who released his debut album Tonight, We All Swim Free in 2015, an almost perfectly formed example of the album as a complete artistic statement. As our reviewer then said, it was ‘beautifully recorded and lovingly created’.
Those last words linger when listening to ‘Scully’, his new single that lays the path for his highly anticipated sophomore album ‘Patterns’ due for release this November. The single, which is released today, is accompanied by a beautifully animated video.
The animation by Martyna Sikonczyk is deceivingly simple in its presentation which only serves to heighten some of the special animated moments and accentuate the mood of the song…a lingering handhold, a moment of trust, escapism…
Speaking on how the new single came about, Callingham said “I used to work at a film and photography hire studio in Bristol. If a shoot ran late, there was often nothing I needed to do but wait for the client to leave so that I could lock up and go home. Gulls would nest on the flat roof of the studio from spring. There was a window from an office just above the studio roof through which you could watch them build their nest, see their chicks hatch and the parent gulls fly off in shifts, returning with scavenged food. By about August, the chicks would have flown the nest and it was ok to go out onto the roof and wait in the setting sun for whatever was being shot below to wrap. Scully was conceived on such an occasion. It has nothing to do with Gillian Anderson’s character in The X-Files.”
Callingham’s hushed vocals and the tremolo guitar accentuate the dreamy reflective feel of the song. Callingham clearly hasn’t lost any of his touch for painting in the pastoral light and his work is, not surprisingly, still very much beautifully recorded and lovingly created. We look forward to savouring the rest.
The artwork for this track and for each of the ten tracks on the forthcoming album as well as its cover in vinyl form was done is by Lyndsie Barnard (see Scully artwork below).
It was recorded by Jim Barr at J&J Studios in Bristol.
Pre-Order Patterns via Bandcamp: https://martincallingham.bandcamp.com/album/patterns
Stream/Save the single: https://ditto.fm/scully-martin-callingham
More here: https://www.martincallingham.com/