Born as a way of staving off madness during lockdown and patiently nurtured into one of the most exciting projects either of its architects have turned their hands to, Afterlands is Rick Anthony (The Phantom Band / Rick Redbeard) and David McAulay (Strike the Colours). Featuring a litany of esteemed guest performers from across the Scottish music scene, Afterlands’ spellbinding debut album We Are The Animals In The Night will be released on limited-edition 12” vinyl and digital services on May 10, 2024.
Rick and Davey first met in 2009 during recording sessions at Chem19 studios near Glasgow, where Davey worked as an engineer. The Phantom Band, the cult motorik indie-rock collective fronted by Rick, were then in the process of making their second album The Wants. The two came to know one another much better a few years later while both studying for a Masters, by which time Rick had begun releasing solo records under the moniker Rick Redbeard, beginning with 2013’s No Selfish Heart. Davey was moving into soundtrack work which included Virginia Heath’s highly acclaimed From Scotland With Love (2014) and would later include a David Attenborough documentary for the BBC. The pair’s first collaboration was writing music for Cindy Jansen’s 2021 documentary Prince of Muck. “It soon became apparent that it was a partnership that we felt could produce some interesting and worthwhile work,” says Rick.
When the pandemic descended in 2020, the two began exchanging ideas remotely “as a way of keeping in touch and keeping busy through what was obviously just a really weird time.” Quickly the contours of what would become Afterlands began to emerge. “Davey would send me instrumental tracks,” remembers Rick, “that I would then spend a few weeks writing a song around; eventually sending him some roughly recorded ideas back that often had kids shouting in the background or whatever domestic noise was going on. On the other hand, I would send him a rough one-minute voice note of a sketchy idea and within a couple of hours he would send me back a fully arranged and orchestrated track as if plucked from thin air.”
Rick’s idiosyncratic alt-folk songs with a feeling craggy, ancient and heavy as mountains found their perfect foil wrapped up in Davey’s lush and lovingly detailed soundscapes, and We Are Animals In The Night started to take shape. An album “like a succession of dreams,” as Rick puts it. A supporting cast including Johnny Scott (Chvrches) and Joe Smillie (Modern Studies) on drums, Jessica Argo (Glasgow Improviser’s Orchestra) on theremin, Pete Harvey (Modern Studies/Andrew Wasylyk) on cello and Kev Brolly (Admiral Fallow) on clarinet, brought yet more rich layers of expressiveness and invention to the recordings, which were which were mixed together with Paul Savage (The Delgados) at Chem19 and mastered by Amy Dragon of Telegram Mastering in Portland. The most showstopping cameos on the album are from Jill O’Sullivan of Sparrow & The Workshop, more recently a solo artist under the moniker Jill Lorean. Her two duets with Rick positioned towards the start and finish of the album, ‘Whale Song’ and ‘Ghosthouse’ (also each featuring Jill on fiddle), are stuff of true spine-tingling wonder. “They feel like a pair really,” says Rick, “and lyrically I wanted to capture that – like they are the beginning and end of the same story.”
“Rick and Jill’s voices are so beautiful together,” adds Davey. “The line ‘And every scrap of grey was once something green tossed to the flames / all to keep the blaze alive on someone else’s fires’ always hits me hard.”
