Fair Mothers release a new single, ‘Harpy’.

It’s the first track from the new LP, ‘In Monochrome’ which is due for release in August 2020.

The band – basically Stonehaven musician Kevin Allan – released another long-player, ‘Separate Lives’, in February, and the forthcoming album is from the same series of sessions at Edinburgh’s Happiness Hotel studio with producer and Song, By Toad label boss Matthew Young.

Anyway, the video for this gnarly, dark track was made by Adam Stafford and you may also be familiar with some of the characters involved in the making of the LP (e.g. Faith Eliott, Pete Harvey, Dana Gavanski).

The track also features cello from Pete Harvey (of The Leg / Modern Studies) and guest vocals by Faith Eliott, as well as the titular harp from Esther Swift.

“Most of my songs need another voice – a woman’s voice – and I’m incredibly grateful to have worked with Katheryn Joseph in the past, and now with Dana and especially with Faith,” says Allan of his approach to working with others.

“I have such a strong sense that it’s getting very late for us, or maybe just getting late for me,” adds Allan. “And that it has to start with knowing myself. Because it’s principally me that’s lying to me. Christ knows why that is.”

The album will also feature Canadian artist Dana Gavanski, and a brief cameo from Lost Map’s Johnny Lynch, aka Pictish Trail.

The single, says Allan, is “about facing up to what you’ve become with unflinching honesty.

“I’m just trying to see the state of me,” he adds.

The accompanying video, directed by Scottish BAFTA-winning filmmaker and musician Adam Stafford, shot in black and white in the countryside of Ayrshire,

“Adam initially had in mind an Nosferatu Vampire, self-medicating with ‘magic bullets’ (pills) each morning as he tries to see himself in his bathroom mirror,” says Allan.

“This turned into a murderous road trip, which Adam inferred from the lyrics. It was his translation completely; I had to go back to the song to see how he had done it, and it was there.”

More at www.facebook.com/Fair-Mothers