The unlikely formation of Silver Moth sounds like a pitch for a reality TV show or maybe even a badly told joke. What do you get if you take seven (almost) strangers from across the UK– including Stuart Braithwaite from Mogwai – and put them on an Outer Hebridean island for a week? The answer is the album Black Bay, a stunning, post-rock, six-track odyssey out on the Bella Union imprint. As a punchline, it’s disappointing, though the album itself is anything but.
Before we discuss the making of this mystical work of wonder, we need to go back to April 2021 where Braithwaite, his wife Elisabeth Elektra and members of Abrasive Trees, Burning House and Prosthetic Head are assembled in a car park at Ullapool, Stornoway, looking for adventure. Britain is just starting to emerge from a third national lockdown, and the wearing of masks is still mandatory. Nervously the group, many of whom have never met before, make their way via ferry to the Black Bay recording studio on the Isle Of Lewis. It’s owned by Pete Fletcher, whose engineering and mastering has graced albums by noiseniks Arrows Of Love, Bardo Pond, Soulsavers and Snapped Ankles.
“My mum’s from there and I’ve spent a lot of time there. It’s a very unique place,” says Braithwaite, sitting at home in Glasgow with the singer and musician Elektra, and their dog Prince outstretched on the sofa. “It’s a very stark landscape, and you feel very close to the Earth. You don’t have to go very far until you can’t see any evidence of human existence.”
“Not only that,” adds Elektra, “but you can also see evidence of human existence from so long ago. It puts into perspective how tiny our lives are and how insignificant we are. I personally love that feeling.”
The catalyst for this rendezvous had come from a conversation on Twitter about getting away from it all. Elektra and musicians Nick Hudson of the gothic The Academy Of Sun and Matthew Rochford of dark ambient project Abrasive Trees had been talking among themselves. The Isle of Lewis was mooted as a great spot to explore and, as the thread expanded, so further musicians were added to the conversation.
Matthew Rochford – musician, Tai chi instructor and all-round man of action – started to make things happen when ordinarily such fanciful talk would slip down the timeline and be forgotten with the outrages du jour. Suddenly, eight musicians from Glasgow, Hastings and Torbay were cracking out the PCRs and testing themselves for Covid, with seven of them booking their ferry tickets to Stornoway. Only one, Nick Hudson, wouldn’t make the trip having sadly contracted the vrius.
“Coming out of the intensity of lockdown to what felt like the edge of the world to make a record with people who didn’t all know each other is definitely an experiment to say the least,” wrote Rochford recently about the experience. “The fact that an album has come out of this – none of which had been written beforehand and tracked in just four days [it was mixed and overdubbed during the following four] is almost incomprehensible. But these have been almost incomprehensible times, haven’t they?”
The other musicians that make up Silver Moth are former Eden House vocalist Evi Vine, who wrote many of the lyrics and melodies alongside Elektra, plus guitarist Steven Hill, drummer Ash Babb and cellist Ben Roberts. The latter travelled up from the West Country, though he says he was more excited than daunted at being thrown into a situation with new people: “I suppose it’s a common dream of musicians to just go to a beautiful, remote studio for a week and write an album – I mean, who doesn’t want to do that?” says Roberts, who played cello and piano on the record.
Throwing themselves into making what would become their first track, Hello Doom, helped to break the ice. The group soon realised they had plenty in common.
“We’re all goths,” says Elektra, “so I thought we were all going to go up there and we were going to just make one cheesy goth tune.” Moreover, six out of seven of the members are vegans.
“Poor Ash,” adds Elektra, remembering the plight of the non-vegan drummer.
“He brought some eggs back once,” laughs Braithwaite, whose other new bandmates weren’t impressed.
“We’re pretty liberal,” he says of himself and Elektra, “besides, the studio used to be a crabbing hut. More fish have probably died in there than any other building on the island.”
If the experience sounds pressurised, then Braithwaite points out that nobody had any expectations when they arrived. To come back with a fully realised album had not been the intention. He’d planned to use it as a retreat to write his memoir, Spaceships Over Glasgow, though once in the stud...
Before we discuss the making of this mystical work of wonder, we need to go back to April 2021 where Braithwaite, his wife Elisabeth Elektra and members of Abrasive Trees, Burning House and Prosthetic Head are assembled in a car park at Ullapool, Stornoway, looking for adventure. Britain is just starting to emerge from a third national lockdown, and the wearing of masks is still mandatory. Nervously the group, many of whom have never met before, make their way via ferry to the Black Bay recording studio on the Isle Of Lewis. It’s owned by Pete Fletcher, whose engineering and mastering has graced albums by noiseniks Arrows Of Love, Bardo Pond, Soulsavers and Snapped Ankles.
“My mum’s from there and I’ve spent a lot of time there. It’s a very unique place,” says Braithwaite, sitting at home in Glasgow with the singer and musician Elektra, and their dog Prince outstretched on the sofa. “It’s a very stark landscape, and you feel very close to the Earth. You don’t have to go very far until you can’t see any evidence of human existence.”
“Not only that,” adds Elektra, “but you can also see evidence of human existence from so long ago. It puts into perspective how tiny our lives are and how insignificant we are. I personally love that feeling.”
The catalyst for this rendezvous had come from a conversation on Twitter about getting away from it all. Elektra and musicians Nick Hudson of the gothic The Academy Of Sun and Matthew Rochford of dark ambient project Abrasive Trees had been talking among themselves. The Isle of Lewis was mooted as a great spot to explore and, as the thread expanded, so further musicians were added to the conversation.
Matthew Rochford – musician, Tai chi instructor and all-round man of action – started to make things happen when ordinarily such fanciful talk would slip down the timeline and be forgotten with the outrages du jour. Suddenly, eight musicians from Glasgow, Hastings and Torbay were cracking out the PCRs and testing themselves for Covid, with seven of them booking their ferry tickets to Stornoway. Only one, Nick Hudson, wouldn’t make the trip having sadly contracted the vrius.
“Coming out of the intensity of lockdown to what felt like the edge of the world to make a record with people who didn’t all know each other is definitely an experiment to say the least,” wrote Rochford recently about the experience. “The fact that an album has come out of this – none of which had been written beforehand and tracked in just four days [it was mixed and overdubbed during the following four] is almost incomprehensible. But these have been almost incomprehensible times, haven’t they?”
The other musicians that make up Silver Moth are former Eden House vocalist Evi Vine, who wrote many of the lyrics and melodies alongside Elektra, plus guitarist Steven Hill, drummer Ash Babb and cellist Ben Roberts. The latter travelled up from the West Country, though he says he was more excited than daunted at being thrown into a situation with new people: “I suppose it’s a common dream of musicians to just go to a beautiful, remote studio for a week and write an album – I mean, who doesn’t want to do that?” says Roberts, who played cello and piano on the record.
Throwing themselves into making what would become their first track, Hello Doom, helped to break the ice. The group soon realised they had plenty in common.
“We’re all goths,” says Elektra, “so I thought we were all going to go up there and we were going to just make one cheesy goth tune.” Moreover, six out of seven of the members are vegans.
“Poor Ash,” adds Elektra, remembering the plight of the non-vegan drummer.
“He brought some eggs back once,” laughs Braithwaite, whose other new bandmates weren’t impressed.
“We’re pretty liberal,” he says of himself and Elektra, “besides, the studio used to be a crabbing hut. More fish have probably died in there than any other building on the island.”
If the experience sounds pressurised, then Braithwaite points out that nobody had any expectations when they arrived. To come back with a fully realised album had not been the intention. He’d planned to use it as a retreat to write his memoir, Spaceships Over Glasgow, though once in the stud...
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Prog (Digital) - 1 Issue, Issue 139