*Video premiered on Brooklyn Vegan, Glide Magazine, Indie Music Blog and A Pessimist Is Never Disappointed. We’re looking for video/song coverage from Friday 20th Aug.
“The Merry Dancers on TV is gently affecting. A haunting ramble pitched at the place occupied by both Arab Strap and Bon Iver, this elegantly mellow song is something special indeed. It also helps that the video for the composition is just as memorable.” A Pessimist Is Never Disappointed
“The Merry Dancers on TV combines the introspective chamber folk of Fleet Foxes and The Frames, atop a mystical nod laid beneath stunning simplicity.” Glide Magazine
“The Merry Dancers on TV is a lovely piece of delicate folk rock and comes with a gorgeous stop-motion animated video.” Brooklyn Vegan
The Merry Dancers on TV is the first single from Constant Follower’s debut album ‘Neither Is, Nor Ever Was’ on the legendary Shimmy Disc label (Low, Galaxie 500, Daniel Johnston, Bonnie Prince Billy).
In ‘Scots’ (a traditional language spoken in Scotland), natural phenomena are often given beautiful phrasing – the ‘Merry Dancers’ of the song being the Scots term for the Aurora Borealis. The song speaks to the things in life we miss in the bustle and stresses of modern living. In writing the song, McAll was thinking of a particular episode where friends missed the real Merry Dancers above their cottage whilst they were indoors watching a documentary about them.
Co-produced by Scottish singer-songwriter Stephen McAll and renowned producer and Shimmy-Disc founder Kramer (Low, Galaxie 500, Will Oldham), the recording for Neither Is, Nor Ever Was began in early 2020 at La Chunky studios in Glasgow with engineer Johnny Smillie. This was interrupted by the birth of McAll’s daughter (if you listen closely, her cries are just audible during some of Kessi’s backing vocals on ‘Little Marble’), and shortly afterwards by Covid 19 restrictions. McAll began recording the rest at his own CFFC studio in Stirling. The resulting recordings were then mixed and mastered by Kramer at his Noise Miami Studio, to breathtaking effect.
Each album track is accompanied by its own short film. McAll sought-out the most exciting new talents in Scottish film and animation and invited them to be part of the album project. Each video, the artist’s personal response to the song, with no direction or interference from the band, resulting in incredibly moving and enchanting short ‘films’ in their own right (with multiple film festival considerations including Edinburgh International Film Festival and Manchester Film Festival in process).
“Making art together is something that transcends any distance and that was definitely confirmed over the period of making this film. Being able to work with a local band while being trusted with such a stunning song made any physical distance feel obsolete. Constant Follower’s choice to work with new and emerging artists for their videos meant that I, as an artist, was able to create something unlike anything I’ve had the ability to before. This is my second foray into stop motion and I have learned so much from this project alone- skills that would have taken me years to learn in any other setting. The film, at its core; is about connection and how easy it is to lose it if we start taking things for granted in life. I liked the idea that even the moon herself could tire of being taken for granted and head off on a holiday only for one child to notice it missing and go on a voyage to let it know how much it is loved and respected.” – Fiona (Video Director)
“One of the most beautiful records I have ever been privileged to be a part of, filled to the very brim with moment after moment of poetic clarity, and not a moment too late…an interior force to be reckoned with. I’ve never experienced anything quite like it. It weaves elements of the past around a future I was wholly unaware of before hearing these breath-taking songs, each one a kind of memorial to a memory that may or may not have merely been imagined or hoped into existence.” – Kramer
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