This video captures a family from Bedford visiting a holiday home in Jaywick in 1962, and exploring the surrounding area. Jaywick is a fascinating place, originally built in the 1930's as a holiday destination for the people of London, it's now regarded as one of the most deprived places in Britain. Jaywick suffered from serious decline in the 1980's, partly due to the closure of Butlins in Clacton, as well as due to decades of neglect and harsh planning rules imposed by the local authority. It's now hit rock bottom, and the goto subject for Channel 5 poverty porn and Daily Mail articles about the poorest place in Britain.
This track was written with the former version of Jaywick in mind. It's structure was mostly improvised in Ableton with arpeggiators and analog synth plugins used to create a melodic, ambient, soundscape feel. One all the arpeggios and chord progressions were programmed the arrangement was improvised alongside the video using an Akai APC40.
A little background to my 8mm project...
Whilst taking a look around Castle Road Bargain Alley, a local aladdin’s cave, I noticed a shoebox on the floor. Curiosity got the better of me so I took a closer look. Inside were a collection of 8mm home movies from the 1960’s. I was intrigued by the titles, so bought them and had the footage processed. I’ve begun to utilise this found footage as a visual source and inspiration for my music.
Some of these are heavily processed and almost music video in style. Some of them have light editing and FX in order to add some style and motion to the footage, and some of them are untouched, and used simply as inspiration for music.
