“The Fallen by Watch Bird is a conceptual pop album/project by Jane Weaver released on her own label Bird Records in conjunction with Finders Keepers Records, the theme of which is:
“…a floating storyline based around missing seamen, telekinesis, avian messengers, white witchkraft and death & re-birth…”
“The project includes the main album The Fallen by Watch Bird, a sort of sequel or companion record called The Watchbird Alluminate that revisits and reinterprets the main album, an illustrated fictional book, video work, poster and an accompanying compilation mix called Europium Alluminate.
The project takes inspiration from a number of areas of inspiration including Eastern European children’s cinema, Germanic kunstmärchen (fairy tales or one online service literally translated it as “art fairy”), 70s television music and traces of 80s synth pop to create what is described as cosmic aquatic folklore; the resulting work creates a fable like atmosphere that creates a sense of it connecting or belonging to some of its source material but is far from homage, with any such aspects being via a reimagined dreamscape.”
“The Fallen by Watch Bird is credited to Jane Weaver Septième Soeur and features seven other female musicians alongside Jane Weaver, including Susan Christie whose lost 1960s acoustic pop recordings were released by Finders Keepers, 1960s soft psych pop rock musicians Wendy & Bonnie, Lisa Jen who is a member of Welsh language folk band 9Bach and members of Jane Weaver’s former band Misty Dixon.”
“The Watchbird Alluminate adds to that cast and includes collaborations, extensions, revisitings and reinterpretations of the The Fallen By Watch Bird also by Jane Weaver Septième Soeur, alongside Demdike Stare, The Focus Group, Emma Tricca, Wendy Flower, Anworth Kirk, Magpahi, Samandtheplants and Susan Christie.
This album adds to the loose conceptual theme and is said to be about ‘telepathy, technology, lost-love, wiccan, war and watchbirds’.
It is more overtly experimental than purely conceptual pop-orientated and adds a certain spectral, hauntological aspect…”
“The Europium Alluminate mix CD was compiled by Jane Weaver alongside Finders Keepers Records co-founder Andy Votel and it is described as:
‘A 70 minute transmission of cosmic aquatic folklore, flickering luminescent lullabies & hand-plucked pop.’
It is an explorative and intriguing musical journey which serves as an accompaniment and musical backgrounding for The Fallen by Watch Bird, one that hints at some of the possible influences and inspirations for the project but leaves these as hints as there is no tracklisting.”
“The project’s influences led me down a path to discover or rediscover a strand of cinematic history known as the Czech New Wave…
The genre was also known as the Czechoslovak film miracle, which considering the otherworldly nature of some of the films seems quite appropriate, in particular the variously playful, surreal, fairy tale-esque and sometimes anarchic or darker hued likes of Daisies (1966), Valerie and her Week of Wonders (1970) and Malá Morská Víla (1976).”
“Jane Weaver quotes an unsubtitled copy of Malá Morská Víla (also known as The Little Mermaid but something of a world away from the more well-known mainstream 1989 Disney film) as having been the starting point for this album and some of the stylings from it have found their way into photography associated with The Fallen by Watch Bird and the title track’s accompanying video by klunklick.”
“(The video) mixes photography of Jane Weaver dressed as a fallen-through-a-portal sister of one of the characters of Malá Morská Víla, found illustrations from children’s fairy stories (which also accompany the albums’ artwork), live action mixed with animation, cosmic symbolism, fantasia like pastoral and at sea scenes, the appearance and reappearance of black feathered birds and documentary war photography all of which interweave with the left-of-centre pop of the song to create a phantasmagorical, darkly hued and yet also whimsically entrancing fairy tale fable.”
Online images to accompany Chapter 45 of the A Year In The Country: Wandering Through Spectral Fields book, alongside some text extracts from the chapter:
Details of the A Year In The Country: Wandering Through Spectral Fields book and the collection of its accompanying online images can be found at the Book’s Page, which will be added to throughout the year.
