The Mining Co. is the musical project of Ireland born, London based singer/songwriter Michael Gallagher. On his last album, Frontier (reviewed here), a ‘fruitful Andalucian odyssey’, we found him exploring the nature of love in uncertain times. For his new album, Phenomenology, due for release on 1st October 2021, he makes a dramatic left turn towards musical influences that shift away from the folk, country and Americana that have influenced past releases.
A long-term fan of Sparklehorse, as well as Magnetic Fields and eels, Michael’s love of science fiction and story-telling, made a move into electronics the obvious next step. When asked about the decision to go electronic, Michael explains, “I wanted to give the narratives the feeling of them floating out into the beyond via static & electronic waves. The delivery and production of my vocal varies across the album to help give the sense of me portraying different characters telling their story”. Phenomenology is a concept album of sorts; the central protagonist Talby is the lead character of the 1974 cult sci-fi film Dark Star by John Carpenter and is a metaphorical journey into the unknown, where one has no choice but to face one’s fears, a hero’s journey indeed. With Phenomenology, Michael further cements his talent as a songwriter and storyteller par excellence, whether singing with guitar or keyboard, he is clearly one of the UK most singular talents.
In advance of the album release, Michael brings out his new single, a radio edit of Deity Arrived. The video for the single is by director Roger Francis Cook who offered the following on the video below:
“I loved the abstract concept for the album being about someone eternally adrift in space and the stories this lonely spaceman crosses into. For the track Deity Arrived it felt appropriate to create a feeling of what it might be like if you fell in love with a nebulous space goddess. Would your equivalent of a bus ride home after the first date be more like passing through the stargate at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey? To create this feeling off falling in love in the outer reaches of the cosmos we shot Mike in a black void and in the edit overlayed images on top of each other but made each layer stand out by giving bold pop art colour. In the edit I also played around with the sense of time and space through rapidly cutting between sets of images that are some what the same but have subtle variations to create a feeling of being disorientated. All of that should hopefully add up to a feeling of euphoria but one that is so extreme it is disorientating.”
The video delivers on all levels…Sparklehorse meets linguistic relativity…equally wonderous and mind-altering.
The songs for Phenomenologywere written by Michael at home in London throughout 2020 and rehearsed and recorded in Andalucía, Spain, in 2018 with his long-term friends and musical collaborators at Paco Loco Studio in El Puerto de Santa María, Spain. Phenomenology was produced and mixed by Paco Loco, a famed producer acclaimed for his work with luminaries such as Josh Rouse, Gary Louris (Jayhawks), Josephine Foster and Hinds.
Phenomenology is due for release on 1st October 2021.
Photo Credit: Pablo Errea