We recently shared a video for Ye Vagabonds ‘Go Away and Come Back Hither’ from last year’s Nine Waves album. Ye Vagabonds, brothers Brían and Diarmuid MacGloinn released no music videos in the run-up to the album’s release. Instead, they collaborated with the film production company Tiny Ark to create a long-form album video.
The project aimed to create a visual postcard of the sound world that the album inhabits, primarily based within a derelict building in Dublin and on location on the island of Arranmore, off the coast of Donegal.
The short film can now be watched in full below. Before that…
I still prefer listening to music on vinyl and cassette and will listen to an entire album – those formats encourage it, but in 2023, such long-form listening is not the norm. The majority of people now consume music via streaming services using mobile devices. In 2022, in the US, the RIAA reported that 84% of the music industry’s revenue came from streaming, while, in the same year, the BPI stated this was 64% in the UK. It may come as no surprise that we are in a song-skipping culture – while technology has delivered numerous benefits, it is also responsible for constant distractions, information overload and the presentation of irrelevant data, contributing to our ever-shortening attention span. This shortening attention span is also shaping the music industry. In a 2020 report by Samsung, they predicted that by the end of this decade, the average song will be a maximum of 2 minutes, putting the old three-minute pop song cliché to rest.
I’m a firm believer in the benefits of long-form, especially where music is concerned. Personally, I want to be totally absorbed in the listening experience. Thankfully, most of the music I lean towards doesn’t seem to be following the industry norms (our latest Mixtape features a 9-minute opener from ØXN), and I applaud Ye Vagabonds for holding back this film, which they could easily have released in snippets.
The video is just over 48 minutes long, so plan to set aside some time to watch it in full…try and watch it in fullscreen (and in 4K) as it is a beautiful audio-visual experience that deserves to be watched without distraction.
Read our interview with Ye Vagabond below. You can find our in-depth review of Nine Waves here.
FILM CREDITS
Director – Alex Delap
Producer – Liam Harkin
Assistant Producer – Daniel Moynihan
Director of Photography – Leon Forristal
C-Cam – Saoirse Johnson Gaffey
1st AC – Colm Moore & Saoirse Johnston Gaffey Drone Operator – Colm Moore
Editor – Ronan Fox
Colourist – Leon Forristal
Audio Mix – Briìan Mac Gloinn
Musicians
Briìan Mac Gloinn Diarmuid Mac Gloinn Alain McFadden