Pictish Trail reveals epic new single ‘It Came Back’ taken from his new album ‘Island Family’ set for release on March 18th 2022. The album’s release coincides with a headline tour across the UK this Spring.
The understated verses of ‘It Came Back’, with their tense, foreboding bass-driven electro hip-hop accompaniment, bursts to life with an arms-aloft falsetto chorus, and a brain-shattering industrial metal meltdown.
“I don’t have a TV at home, and so – while away recording on the mainland – was completely hooked to the flat-screen hung up on my hotel-room wall, constantly scrolling through the Freeview channels to avoid writing lyrics. There were protests happening in Bristol, loads of footage of helicopters flying about, heavy police presence. Having largely avoided the news for a year, obliviously floating about in the Hebridean wilderness, I was suddenly submerged in this dystopian hellscape. Except it was real. Well, it was real on the telly.
The previous month there had been a feeling that we had gotten through the worst of times, that normal life would soon be resumed. We constantly have to tell ourselves that the worst is over, so that we can refresh our mindset as a defence mechanism, in subconscious mental preparation for the unknown traumas to come.” adds Pictish Trail
Produced by long-term collaborator Rob Jones (The Voluntary Butler Scheme, The Gene Dudley Group), ‘Island Family’ is strange, unpredictable and sardonic. A deeply personal record, it’s inspired by all from Fever Ray to The Flaming Lips, Liars, Mercury Rev and Beck, ‘Island Family’ is Pictish Trail’s contrarian view of arcadia; a search for the euphoric in the bucolic, bound up in sometimes conflicting ideas and feelings around nature and environment, sincerity and artifice, escapism and belonging. It’s an album about how no man can remain an island, however hard he might try.
Pictish Trail’s ‘Island Family’ is out 18th March on Fire Records. Available on Limited Edition Green Vinyl, Black LP, CD & Digital.
