This Friday (14th April), acclaimed Stirling-based group Constant Follower, led by Stephen McAll, and renowned folk guitarist Scott William Urquhart release their collaborative album, ‘Even Days Dissolve’. It’s an enchanting, deeply absorbing, and meditative album, the product of a musical affinity between two thoughtful and uniquely talented Scottish songwriters and musicians.
To accompany their forthcoming single Wildlife Cameraman (Summer Farm), Erentia Bedeker of animation studio Wreckless Creative has Directed an inspiring papercut, stop-motion animation that manages to capture the wonder contained within the prose of Scottish poet Norman MacCaig and the introspective nature of Scott’s lyrics.
Anyone familiar with Stephen McAll’s backstory will be aware of the inspiration he has drawn from the poetry of Norman MacCaig. It formed a major source of comfort and support to him during a long period of recovery following a violent and unprovoked attack that left him with catastrophic head injuries, partially paralysed and unable to write or play guitar.
I was deeply moved by it all – the arrangements, the song and its delivery, MacCaig’s prose and the video, and I hope that those of you that are new to this music and poetry go on to explore more. Constant Follower and Scott William Urquhart have crafted a beautiful album inspired by Norman MacCaig (1910-1996). In the press notes for the album, it states ‘MacCaig’s prose is characterised by its gentle humour, precise observation and love for the natural world’. While those elements have shaped this album, they would not have done so in the way that they have if the talents behind this album didn’t also have that depth of vision so admired in MacCaig. Don’t let this album slip under your radar, and do go and explore their individual work as well – Scott William Urquhart’s solo guitar offerings are pastoral and sublime while McAll’s offerings, accompanied by his band Constant Follower, are all the richer for their rare raw beauty. These two humble souls deserve so much more exposure, so don’t miss out….and spread the word.
The single is out this Friday, the same day as their album ‘Even Days Dissolve’ is released. Pre-Order the album here.
McAll and Erentia Bedeker have kindly provided a very revealing insight into the song and video in their own words below.
McAll on Wildlife Cameraman (Summer Farm): “Being able to work with MacCaig’s poetry and especially with his voice was a real honour. But it was also the track on the album that I fretted over getting right the most. I just didn’t want to let it down. Fortunately, Scott had written this beautiful, gentle, slightly naïve even, song which fit perfectly with what I understand of MacCaig’s words. The link between the song and the poem is this idea of observing the world around us. Scott’s words are somehow slightly introspective where MacCaig’s were expansive and outward-looking. So I think setting them against, rather than together-with each other is what gives the song this particular magic.
The final song to me felt like it would be this rising anthem to the magic of nature and our observation as the everyday becomes incredible the closer we look. I wanted to make the listener feel this excitement when they listened to the song, so I was trying to add this gentle crescendo like birdsong rising close to sunset. Kathleen and Amy from the band are in the background but the vocal you hear most closely under Scott is that of my eldest daughter Islay. His words needed someone that sounded a little more fragile, or innocent is maybe a better word. Then you have the rising brass of the Mytholmroyd Colliery Band right at the end before it drops into the ‘silence’ that is never truly silence outside (birdsong for the final 20 seconds).
Like MacCaig reaching into the expanse before Scott’s words bring it back to the small. This is what Erentia’s film captures so well I think, the relationship between the inward-looking self and the outward-looking self. Entrusting your music with a filmmaker you’ve never worked with before could be stressful but I find it exhilarating. I’m inviting people to work with me because of the work they’ve already done, and that’s why I like to stay as far as I can out of their creative process. I pretty much gave Erentia the song and that was the end of my involvement until the film came back. I’d found Erentia’s work online basically from extensive googling of people doing interesting work in the stop-motion realm. There was an instant connection before we’d even talked. Something about the intention maybe, or the openess and space in Erentia’s previous work, that really grabbed me as being right to do this song justice.“
Erentia Bedeker said: “The song pulled me in from the opening guitar chords. There is a deep earthy harmony between the lyrics and instruments of the song that reminds me of what our bond with nature is supposed to be like. The moment I heard the song I started to see images in my mind’s eye and I knew that I would love to bring those images to life through the animation.As someone who grew up near nature, I always long for that uninterrupted beingness one experiences in nature away from the distractions and noise of technology and busy everyday life.
I experienced the same tranquil feeling one gets from watching a sunset or listening to the ocean waves when I listened to not only Wildlife Cameraman but most of Constant Follower’s music. I wanted the animation to convey those same feelings and atmosphere.
One of the charms of stop-motion animation is the textural possibilities different mediums have. For most of the characters and set pieces I used recycled paper: the ducks were made from the cover of an old colouring book; the brown background of the cameraman’s world was an old piece of paper I got from the back of an old painting I bought at a second-hand store and a lot of other pieces were made from leftover paper I kept from the first two short films I animated. Memories are an important theme in the film and I felt like all these pieces of paper that other people would have thrown away a long time ago, were imbued with time and memories themselves. I like sentimental notions like that. I treated the film more like a poetry film rather than a music video. I wanted the animation to add an additional layer of meaning and interpretation to MacCaig’s poem and the music. The animation tells its own story with the poem and music as the backdrop. The main theme I worked with is the connection between our true, inner selves and the outside version of ourselves. Sometimes we lose touch with our true selves, but we can never be completely separated from that part of ourselves. When we quiet down and take a long look, we will always find ourselves within ourselves. And nature is the best place for that reunion to take place.”
Constant Follower: https://www.constantfollower.com/
Scott William Urquhart: https://scotturquhart.bandcamp.com/