NATURAL SUCCESSOR
Directed by Sam Wisternoff

'Natural Successor' was the first in a batch of songs for Island Family about an attempt to reconnect with my surroundings and surrender to the forces of nature. Lockdown on Eigg will do that to you.

When director Sam got in touch at the start of the year, keen to work on a project together, I sent him over this song. I was looking to create a family of characters to represent different natural phenomena, each determined to exact their disastrous revenge for our destruction of the planet.

IT CAME BACK
Directed by Sam Wisternoff

The Island Family characters reunite for this video, a mind-melting Zoom interview for a music-podcast-gone-wrong, starring the comedian James Acaster as bemused host.

Amazing editing work from Sam on this one. Possibly the best dancing i've ever done, too.

ISLAND FAMILY
Directed by Sam Wisternoff

Bonfire night is one of my favourite nights of the year, on Eigg - we all gather together for a big fire, and fireworks (some of them home-made). I had been thinking a lot about what it means to feel a sense of belonging to a place. It's such a close-knit community here, when someone passes away it makes a big impact. With this song i was imagining the lost souls of Eigg to be hovering above the island's bonfire congregation, swooping across the sky with the fireworks.

MELODY SOMETHING
Directed by Sam Wisternoff

I started jogging (again) during lock-down. I always end up running the same route, every time - from the gate at the bottom of Galmisdale, to the wee bothy at Gruilin, and then back. Takes about 35 minutes. 31 if the wind is up my arse.

This song is about running that same path, and noticing the changes of the season throughout the year, changes that i often miss if i'm away on tour.

IN THE LAND OF THE DEAD
Directed by Sam Wisternoff

Hogmanay, 31st December 2021. About to bring in the new year with a big party. I couldn't face the thought of having to look in the mirror the next day, and seeing my regular hungover face. Something had to change.

So i shaved my beard off. Still had a right bastard of a hangover, which lasted most of the week, mind you. Fittingly, this song is about trying to escape the excesses of island party life, and failing miserably.

LEAD BALLOON
Directed by James Hankins

Filmed in Bristol, whilst on tour, at the end of 2019. It was the general election night, even. It was a lot of fun making this vid. I actually got to do some flying in the air.

The song is about trying to be a version of yourself, that you think others would want you to be, inevitably disappointing everyone, and going mad in the process.

SLOW MEMORIES
Directed by Swatpaz

Such an amazing animated video, this - created by Davey Swatpaz, who also designed all the artwork for the album cover. Romeo Taylor fans, look out for the wee Easter Egg in there.

I don’t believe in aliens, but I was intrigued by the idea of believing in something unreal in order to escape from reality.

DOUBLE SIDED
Directed by John-Mark Lapham

John-Mark is an old pal, and a member of The Earlies. He’s a very talented dude, managing to reimagine Swatpaz’s characters within a kaleidoscopic video game.

’Double Sided’ is about trying out different identities online, becoming alternate versions of ourselves, multiple times, never really finding the right fit, but knowing we can change again.

TURNING BACK (lyric video)
Directed by Richie Morgan

This is a sort of romantic song about replaying the moment you fall in love. It’s set on a Saturday night, when the clocks go back for Daylight Savings, and you relive the same hour, over again. I imagined a future in which instead of living our lives, we could just constantly replay our highlights.

BAD ALGEBRA (lyric video)
Directed by Richie Morgan

Sometimes I wake up in the morning, read the news on my phone, shake my head, and go about my day pretending to be a person that doesn’t live in that world.

This song almost didn’t make it on the album, but i’m glad we kept it on. If we play it live I have to make sure it’s near the end of the set so I don’t f*ck my voice too early on.

FAR GONE (DON’T LEAVE)
Directed by Ryan Owen Eddleston

We filmed this over two days, around various locations on the Isle of Eigg. Me chasing after myself. So much running. I had to pretend i was fit.

I spent the following week in bed.

When I perform this song live, I tell everyone that it’s about my favourite film, Fargo. Which is true. Although it’s really a metaphor for paranoia, the fear of being caught, and how that pushes people into desperate situations.

DEAD CONNECTION
Directed by Ciaran Lyons / Forest Of Black

This video we filmed over the course of one day, and it’s all a collection of photographs that were taken rapidly and placed together.

I was a bit obsessed with death on this album. There’s a few songs in which i’m trying to work out whether i’m dead or alive. I think i’m alive.

AFTER LIFE
Directed by James Hankins

I really love working with James, I feel like he gets the brash weirdness of my humour. He’s captured it perfectly in this hyper-active vid.

Is there an after-life? In this song, I imagine that the life-cycle repeats itself into infinity; we die and become ourselves again. The chorus, however, ironically repeats that we’re not coming back.Look, there’s only one way to find out. You first.

WHO’S COMIN’ IN? (JOE GODDARD REMIX)
Directed by Dan Tombs

Hot Chip are one of my all-time favourite acts, a huge influence, and this reworking of my song by Joe Goddard is so sublime. Love it. I filmed myself walking around Eigg, and my pal Dan created a mesmeric accompanying visual.

The song is about self-doubt, and hitting a writer’s block'. It can make you question everything, and take you to a dark place. You just have to steer it, so that you’re in control of the questions.

LIONHEAD (LIVE AT HOWLIN’ FLING!)
Directed by Forest Of Black

Trying to find the energy to play a live set at your own festival is always a bit tricky. I’m lucky to have such a shit-hot live band - Suse, Iain, Nichola and Joe all sounding amazing on this. I couldn’t find my distortion pedal before we played, so borrowed one from my pal Craig (of Savage Mansion). Half way through my noise-solo the guitar lead fell out - ha! Shout out to Sam Annand for managing to mix this audio so that it makes sense.

SECRET SOUNDZ DOCUMENTARY
Directed by Forest Of Black

I spent a lot of 2011 inside a caravan, feeling pretty exhausted and sad. Didn’t really write all that much, but by the time 2012 came around i needed to unclog my brain with fragments of different songs, that suddenly came together all at once. My pal Steve (Sweet Baboo) came up to Eigg, and we recorded them all within the space of a week.

Later that year, my friends Blair, Beth and Michael also visited the island and had a chat with me about the making of the album.

MICHAEL ROCKET
Directed by Forest Of Black + Christian Ward

Christian Ward designed all the artwork for my first few albums, and you can see him in this video, sketching beautiful weirdness out of my ears. Was fun having a dance with all my pals at the end.

There are a few songs on Vol.2 about coming to terms with my mum’s death - when she passed, her eyes had turned into these sort of crystalline spiders. I couldn’t really get that image out of my head, so I sang about those eyes, and about staying indoors.

WAIT UNTIL
Directed by Wake Up Advice

This is the other song that is directly about my mum’s passing. It’s a sad song, but it’s about celebrating love, really.

Amazing work from the Urbaniks Street Skool of Dance, here. They taught me a few moves, which look a lot more graceful in slow-motion than they did in real time, let me tell you. Also, that warehouse we filmed in was absolutely f*cking freezing.

LONG IN THE TOOTH
Directed by Ryan Owen Eddleston

Aww, I really like this video.

We filmed this over Howlin’ Fling! weekend in 2014, I think? I managed to get away from the festival site for 7 minutes, grabbed some friends - Owen Eagleowl, Rozi Plain, Adam Randolph’s Leap, Kate Canaveral and Seamus Fogarty - to join me on a whirlwind tour of Eigg, in the back of our pick-up truck.

Another top job from Ryan.

THE HANDSTAND CROWD
Directed by Forest Of Black

This was also shot on Eigg, over that same Howlin’ Fling! weekend in 2014. To tie in with the song title, the focus on this video was the crowd. It’s definitely the people who attend the festival that make it so good.

And - yowwwwft - everyone looks so young and fresh faced in this vid.

WINTER HOME DISCO
Directed by Forest Of Black

Ha! The first ever Pictish Trail video, filmed in 2008, across various locations around Anstruther and Cellardyke, in Fife. What a funny time. That gold lamé suit got two “airings” that year. Once was this video, the other was a hallowe’en party (it was pirate themed, and I went as “Treasure”). The suit absorbed so much sweat during both occasions that it subsequently disintegrated, never to be seen again.

It felt really special having a video made, like i’d finally become a ‘proper’ musician - despite the fact this tune was recorded on a ZOOM 8-track machine in my bedroom. Somehow, this vid managed to get on MTV a couple of times. Testament to Blair Young’s vision, and possibly my dance moves.

CAVALIER
Directed by DARYL / Pulse Films

The fun thing about doing Silver Columns was being able to write songs in a different way. This was the first song that Adem and I wrote together, and it’s yer classic call-and-response lyric. Like Sonny and Cher. Or Mel Smith and Kim Wilde. Except we were both Mel Smith.

ALWAYS ON
Directed by Daniel Brereton

This is my fave Silver Columns song - the balance of warmth and weirdness is really everything I love about music.

Saying that, there’s a remix by Caribou which is even better than the version we did.

I’ve really fond memories of this video, too - was nice spending a day in London with Ad, and we played a gig in the evening, there’s a bit of the soundcheck in here.

BROW BEATEN
Directed by Kieran Evans

An epic video, this. A sort of mini-movie, about speed walking. Our friend Minna makes an amazing cameo.

It’s funny hearing the pre-tonsillectomy Pictish falsetto on this. It was insanely difficult song to perform live, until I had my tonsils removed. Ironically, they were ripped out by Jimmy Somerville outside a branch of Debenhams, during an unrelated scuffle.

EXCERPT FROM LIVE AT THE STAND
Animated by David Galletly

The audio of this video is taken from a performance I did at The Stand in Edinburgh in 2015, while on tour with my friend Josie Long. It’s been transformed into an amazing animation by David Galletly - and it’s at a section of the show where I performed some of the 30 second songs from my (now deleted) In Rooms album.

I really enjoyed doing these shows, and ‘Sweating Battery Acid’ is probably the best thing i’ve ever done. Well, better than ‘Birds’, anyway.