All About '38
Story of '38
We’re pleased to bring you our new single ’38. The first of many releases coming over the next few months as part of our next EP ‘Thorns’ out April 10th on Bandcamp and April 17th everywhere else. Keep reading for a little of the backstory.
A little about ’38 from Iain:
“I wrote “‘38” almost 2 years ago, during the first of what is now many times that I felt like the end of the world was imminent. As well as referencing what many these days might list as contributing factors to the downfall of humanity (greed, ignorance, and the press all get a mention – “… as sirens air until they fade behind the lines with, ‘This is not as ‘38’…”), the song is trying to put across that, no matter what your perspective is on major, far-reaching events in the world, ultimately when they land on your door, they will take you by surprise.”
The Video
With the video, we wanted to find a way to reflect the impact that the greed, ignorance and division noted in the song can impact people. The circus folk are simply meant to represent those most negatively affected by these things in real life. Using them as an abstraction broadens what they’re able to represent, and is meant to put across the idea that nobody is safe in these times, something that gets touched on again in a later single…
The shift from black & white to colour further hits the point home by saying, “we’ve made these mistakes before, and we’re making them again.”
Filmed by Will and directed and edited by Chris, starring our good friends James Farmer, Hayley Ellen Morgan, Gemma Tracey and Josh Butcher!
Sketches to Demos to the real thing!
The early versions of ‘38 had a very different structure, including a scrapped middle section and the final lead riff going off in a different, more ‘Manchester Orchestra’ direction… Still hits TBH! The intro was very much inspired by ‘The Earth Will Shake’ by Thrice. We took this approach and messed with a pretty standard strumming pattern to try to give a real sense of ‘alarm’ when it eventually kicks in. True story; on our last tour we made an engineer jump whilst playing this in sound check. Mission accomplished. Only about a third of the lyrics from this one made the final cut.
By the time we get to ‘Final Demo’ versions, we like to have basically everything in place so that we know what we’re doing when it comes to studio time, safe in the knowledge that our wonderful producer, Daly George, will tighten us up on the day and sprinkle his magic fairy dust all over our songs… Still, you can hear that the lyrics are not yet on their final draft, and some harmonies are either missing or different (fairy dust). By now, though, we have the final structure, which was simply the product of jamming it a bunch and feeling out the direction it should go in the room.
Artwork
We couldn’t leave this without a BIG thank you to our good friend Laura! She used vinyl cutting to make the perfect imagery for ’38, all done by hand and scanned over and we couldn’t be more greatful!
As well as creating the incredible ’38 Artwork, she’s also created the artwork for all the singles AND EP! As well as being a super talented artist, she’s also an incredible musician so go check her out @elbysings .
