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Meursault

Inverleith Park, Edinburgh, 2010

Since we were staying with Matthew from Song, by Toad in Edinburgh, we could hardly miss Neil Pennycook from Meursault. Neil and Matthew often hang out together and once we also stumbled into Neil’s mixing of the new Meursault-album that happened in Matthew’s studio and living room. The little pretaste of the second album “All creatures will make merry” that we got to hear was already overwhelming, so we are happy that Neil decided to perform two songs from it for the acoustic session. Not far from Matthew’s home at Inverleith Park, Neil walks up a hill with a nice view on the city. Shafts of sunlight are caressing the scenery with a pond populated by swans to Neil’s feet and a rugby match taking place behind him. Amidst the surrounding noise of rugby players doing their battle cry and sea-gulls calling, Neil raises his urgent voice to perform “Weather” and scream out the pain over our heads and over the city’s rooftops. It’s of a catching energy and leaves you wanting to do a tirade of similar sound intensity. Yet after this compelling volume competition with the sports men (that Neil definitely won!), Meursault takes a seat at the stairs to the pond to go for the more peaceful “One Day This’ll All Be Fields“. The rendition is not less absorbing and soon Neil finds himself encircled by inquisitive swans.

Camera
Michael Luger
Sound Recording
Sarah Brugner
Post production
Michael Luger
Photography
Simon Brugner
Artist
Meursault

Inverleith Park, Edinburgh

Describing Edinburgh’s impressive scenery of outstanding old stone-buildings and the dramatic castle – that is something we leave to other more capable ones. It is true that the beauty of the city – embedded in always green hills and situated next to the rough sea coast – is breathtaking. Edinburgh as one of the cities with the highest living standard in UK is a place to breathe in history (something we are familiar with from our home base Vienna); nonetheless there is still a lot of non-historical things going on. With a population of about 500,000 (a third of the number of people living in Vienna), it is far from a metropolis feeling and still has a really remarkable music scene. To get some feeling for it, you should check out the music video project Off The Beaten Tracks and the music blog (containing videos and podcasts) Song, by Toad from this cool guy Matthew. We have to thank him a million times as he was the one who made our filming in Edinburgh possible. We were staying with him, his great wife and crazy cat and used Matthew’s resources (knowledge and opinions about music, his network as a label owner and blogger, his internet, his bathroom etc.) to connect with Edinburgh’s music world. So we are happy to start the Scotland music special with the four sessions that we have done in Edinburgh (and yeah, we know – shame on us! – we missed Frightened Rabbit). The filming with Meursault took place at Inverleith Park, that is adjacent to the Botanic Garden. The park with its nice view on the city and Edinburgh Castle includes a rugby field, allotments and a pond popular for swans and use with model boats.