Taken from their latest album Tonebeds For Poetry, Stick in the Wheel have shared a video for The Seafarer, described in our album review as bleak poetry set over minimal beats. It will come as no surprise that this is no ordinary poem but a one found in the Exeter Book which is generally acknowledged to be one of the great works of the English Benedictine revival of the tenth century. The poem gives a first-person account of a man alone on the sea. Its meaning has been debated for some time, some believe it to be allegorical while some see it as a literal penitential exile.
For the accompanying video, Stick in the Wheel had the writer, illustrator and printmaker Nick Hayes make them a series of images. Nick’s work has adorned the covers of many well-known books and his images often deal with nature and our relationship with it. He also wrote The Book of Tresspass (by the law of trespass, in the UK, we are excluded from 92 per cent of the land and 97 per cent of its waterways), the book was described by George Monbiot as “A remarkable and truly radical work, loaded with resonant truths”. There appears to be a common radical ground between Hayes and Stick in the Wheel, so it seems very appropriate that have used his artwork here which they then cut out with a lino cutter for what is a visually stunning and haunting video.
In our review of the album, Thomas Blake concludes:
Combinations of sound that are unexpected and completely unique, discordant interludes and ragged-edged drones: these aren’t the things you might expect to find on a folk album. But we live in accelerated times, and if music doesn’t change, it will die out. No one recognises that fact quite so keenly as Stick In The Wheel, who continue to be one of the most groundbreaking and unpredictable acts in any of the countless genres they move between.
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https://www.stickinthewheel.com