James Welsh has released an emotional short film for his debut album ‘Filaments’. Check it out below.
The first record from the Yorkshire musician under his own name comes out today (January 23) via Phantasy – the label owned by DJ Erol Alkan. Welsh was first signed to the label under the alias Kamera.
‘Filaments’ is “a collection born from an intersection of pain and perseverance”, Welsh told NME. It comes after he tragically lost his second child, Rory, to leukaemia at the age of one in 2016.
“It gathers tracks conceived during Rory’s illness and those that emerged in the wake of his
passing, an archive of a life upended and then rebuilt. Each piece was crafted alone, within the quiet confines of my own studio,” he added.
A decade later, the project sees Welsh attempt to “reckon with this incomparable tragedy”, per a press release, through elements of techno, experimental and post-rock influences.
Alongside the record, Welsh has shared a short film helmed by BAFTA-winning director Kieran Evans – the creative force behind 2012’s Kelly + Victor and all Manic Street Preachers videos and live footage since their 2013 album ‘Rewind The Film’.
Set in Welsh’s native North Yorkshire, the film harnesses the area’s rugged landscape while presenting the musician frozen in grief, before reaching a poignant conclusion that sees him move through the stages of mourning.
“As a family we moved through fear, through the rawness of uncertainty, through moments of despair, and finally, through a residual sense that life could still expand despite loss,” Welsh says of the record. “This work is less a catharsis and more a diary, created in the only medium I know. In the end, our lives did not stop at grief; they continued to grow around it.”
Evans also told NME how his involvement in the project came to be, saying it began with a “cryptic text” from Alkan, before Welsh sent him the album and he was “immediately hooked.”
“It’s a record of extraordinary depth, and when James later told me about how the death of his son Rory had informed the making of the album, I was 100 per cent committed,” Evans added.
He went on to say: “I was really nervous when I travelled up to North Yorkshire to meet James, his wife Laura and his two lovely boys William and Sonny as I didn’t really have an idea for what the film could and should be about.
“How do you make an experimental short exploring the subject of grief and surviving the loss of a child? But within five minutes of meeting James, something just clicked. He was open to anything.”
Evans added: “I’d be lying to say this was an easy film to make. It wasn’t. I spent endless hours in the edit suite, working and reworking sequences to just find the right “feeling” for each section.
“I felt I owed it to James and to the memory of Rory to capture an essence that somehow reflected the emotional depth contained in the music of Filaments. It’s been a labour of love as well as a profoundly moving experience making this film, and I’m grateful for the trust that James and Erol placed in me to make it.”
Alkan then told NME: “I was completely trusting of Kieran and James making a film which would convey the complexity of emotions with the album serving as the soundtrack, yet present the music front and centre without compromising on the weight of the subject matter. I feel they succeeded beyond my expectations and I’m incredibly proud for Phantasy to be part of this.”