Mark Lanegan‘s final ever video prior to his death has been released.
‘Hiraeth’, from the late grunge icon and Joe Cardamone’s side project Dark Mark vs. Skeleton Joe, features the final filmed footage of the Screaming Trees frontman, with a collage of clips throughout his career.
The second half of the video shows Lanegan and Cardamone wandering the forests around Killarney, Ireland, where Lanegan moved to towards the end of his life.
The pair filmed the video after his near-death experience from COVID-19. Lanegan died at the age of 57 in February.
“When I made it over to Killarney to visit Mark post-COVID/coma, we only had a week to work on filming things and humble resources,” Cardamone told Spin of the video.
“We just got together every day and tried to make a go of it. A lot of the photos and filming while I was there with him doubled as sight seeing. This was a chance to spend time together and for Mark to show me his new hometown. He looked so genuinely happy there, more so than maybe I ever saw in Los Angeles. Surrounded by nature and peace. It’s a breathtaking corner of the world.”
He continued, “On the last day, we all decided to visit a side of the lake that Mark had yet to explore. We walked and talked through the woods for several hours and broke out the camera at the very end. I had always hoped to do some kind of visual for ‘Hiraeth’ but we we were almost out of time at this point and just hanging out took priority.”
Lanegan previously said that Dark Mark vs. Skeleton Joe was born out of his and Cardamone’s wishes to explore beyond the boundaries of the genres they’d previously dabbled in.
“The fact that it’s not like anything either one of us have done before is what makes this so interesting for me,” Lanegan said last year. “When you have done as much stuff as Joe and I, you have to constantly search for the different and challenging to keep yourself engaged.”