The Singing Gate sees a couple of matches magically turn into a crow, and go on an adventure. The song is the first single from Ber's album Fort Growing. Ber is an Edinburgh based musical collaboration between myself, and guitarist Nacho.
The piece features handmade marionettes constructed from paper, fabric, and wood. I decided to build the characters, and the set, to mirror the textural quality of the album – which was recorded through an old, and slightly broken, turntable speaker.
To incorporate the album’s themes of creating a home, I represented my favorite elements of buildings from places I’ve lived. Burnt matches, for the dark cladding on Swiss farmhouses. Patterned fabric, for Argentine floral upholstery. And painted and torn paper, for Scotland’s weathered stone walls.
Instead of literally tying the visuals to the narrative of the song, I decided to focus on Fort Growing’s meditation on metamorphosis and the absurd.
Scribbled hastily on a napkin before a gig, the story of the crow was conceived very quickly, but took over a month to finish. The final product is comprised of almost 1,500 pictures, was shot over the course of 50 hours, and took approximately 6 weeks to complete.
