Secrets!
You found the Easter Egg! Here you can find more information on all of the tracks, the recording process and unknown facts about the EP - careful though, it contains spoilers!The Making of In Amber
➢Throughout the promotional content for the EP, I am wearing an amber ring on my left hand - the cover art photos were taken through the ring to create the amber glow - the line on the right hand side of the EP art is the silver band of the ring!
Sylvia
➢ Sylvia was written in response to speaking to an old woman on the bus to uni one day. She sold jewellery in her spare time, and I liked the fact that her name sounded so close to the goods she was selling.
➢The music video was filmed on a camera from the 90s I found in the attic. It was filmed in a Forest near Cardiff, and on the Black Mountain in the Brecon Beacons on the 1st January 2020. I wasn’t wearing a lot, and it was -2°C in the fog, so I was really fucking cold! (the picture above is me in the car trying to warm up with a cup of tea afterwards)
➢The man in the video is actually my twin brother. He had to make a film for his degree course at the time, so we made a deal that we would film each other’s video on the condition that we appeared in each others films for a few seconds!
Vividly
➢ The music video was filmed in the first few weeks of the national lockdown back in March. I lived in the centre of Cardiff at the time, and was struck by the now empty commuter roads that surrounded me, and how quiet the city sounded. My brother and I took the opportunity to run through the once busy streets, and film the view of me sitting in my bedroom window, where I was now spending so many hours at my desk.
➢I liked the contrast of the feeling of being trapped inside that so many people were experiencing at the time, with releasing a film of someone freely running through empty streets, and looking inside at someone stuck in their house.
Apricots
➢Apricots, again, was filmed in my flat under lockdown. As we were filming in March, and had no access to proper shops, we couldn’t source any fresh apricots, so I had to make the jam for the video from tins.
➢ The pictures below show the state of the kitchen as we were filming - it involved stacking a lot of stuff in odd places to try and make enough room for the camera, and it was lit by my desk lamp.
➢ Unfortunately, the jam I made was gross.
The Forest
➢ The Forest was recorded live in the living room in the student flat I lived in at the time. In the track, you can hear birds singing - I fed them a few minutes before, so they would be tweeting in the recording. If you listen really closely, you’ll also hear the sound of the 5:30 commuter train passing by.
➢The track was written about 20 minutes before Jackson and I had to go onstage for a gig we had the year before. We finished and liked it enough to play it there and then, and it was a hit! I was sat in the window of my student halls at the time which had ivy growing through the cracks - this gave me the inspiration for the hookline.
➢ The picture below shows Jackson, the keys guy and backing vocalist, in the living room, holding a microphone lead as we were setting up - the bird feeder is just outside the right hand window!
Life in Amber
➢Life in Amber is written to be ‘train music’. I spent many hours on public transport on my commute to uni every day, and I loved the feeling of sitting on the top of the bus and driving through the city just as it’s getting dark; surrounded by other commuters going home for the day, and everyone’s lights are on so the houses are glowing orange. Perhaps it’s gently raining, and the bus windows are beginning to steam up.
➢I wanted to recreate the blurred lights of the bus in the music video - we filmed just as it was getting dark in the bus stop at the end of the road. We were again helped by the lockdown, as no buses were departing from that station at the time so we were alone.
➢We brought my dog with us to film because the station is actually in a park, so it was very dark and a little spooky!
In Amber EP
Released 7th May 2020
‘Exquisite’
Adam Walton, BBC Radio Wales
In Amber is available now on all major streaming platforms.
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‘Exquisite’
Adam Walton, BBC Radio Wales
In Amber is available now on all major streaming platforms.
︎
︎
︎