‘Wakelines’ is the new album from the Mull Historical Society and is released on 21st September 2018 on Xtra Mile Recordings. Produced by the Mercury Award-winning songwriter and Brit Award-winning Producer Bernard Butler, this is the songwriter and author Colin MacIntyre’s eighth album and was recorded in London at Butler’s studio. Colin will also be going on tour at the end of September throughout the UK.
Listen to the lead and title track of the album below!
Colin explains ‘This is my eighth album, but it feels all about firsts. About going back. The first song I wrote for the album was ’14 Year Old Boy’. It tells the story of my first electric guitar being waded ashore to the isle of Mull, held high above the waves by my father, Kenny Macintyre. It was a Fender Telecaster guitar. Whenever I play the guitar even now I still expect an electric shock, to be plugged into the mainland, to be the 14 year-old boy again with his dreams, his sketched stageplots’.
This album is also the first time Colin has worked with someone like Bernard Butler.
‘I had a feeling about the album that I needed to get somewhere new – it was Bernard who realised what I was saying was I needed to get under my skin, lay myself bare. I’ve long admired Bernard and I feel that he has left some of him on here too. To have him performing so much on the album is an added bonus!
‘The album title ‘Wakelines’ in part refers to the child inside when I would wake early to watch as my father left the island for his weekly work at the BBC back in the city. He didn’t know I was watching. I missed him dreadfully. The songs are about family, and home, and how home, and islands, dreams, travel. Fittingly, we recorded the album in Bernard’s home in London and that has left its mark too – it just all felt right. Fitted. But it is also about people on the move in a global sense, families being forced to leave their homes due to war. Migration, and how “home” travels, have been themes across much of my recent work. In both music and words it has been the most creative time I’ve ever had.’
This is his first release in over 2 years, but he hasn’t been procrastinating in the studio. Following his first novel in 2015 ‘The Letters of Ivor Punch’ – which went on to win the Edinburgh International Book Festival First Book Award – he has now adapted it for the stage and has just released two new books. A memoir about his childhood growing up on the Isle of Mull entitled ‘The Boy In The Bubble’ which is his contribution to the W&N Books ‘Hometown Tales – Highlands & Hebrides’ series of original tales by regional writers. There is also his first children’s picture book ‘The Humdrum Drum’ (Little Door Books) about an orchestra drum, promoting togetherness and teamwork, which comes with an accompanying CD of original related songs and audiobook from Colin.
UK HEADLINE TOUR
20 September Glasgow, CCA
21 September Edinburgh, Pleasance Bar
22 September Aberdeen, Lemon Tree
23 September Sheffield. Greystones
27 September Bristol, Louisana
28 September Manchester, Night & Day
29 September Oxford, Jericho Tavern
30 September Newcastle, Cluny
01 October Leeds. Brudenell
02 October London, Borderline (with Bernard Butler)
04 October Brighton, Prince Albert
06 October Southampton, Heartbreakers
27 October Isle Of Mull, Mull Theatre
Colin MacIntyre is an award-winning musician, producer, author and playwright. He has released eight acclaimed albums to date, most notably under the name Mull Historical Society, having achieved two UK Top 20 albums and four Top 40 singles, since his Gold-selling debut album, ‘Loss’.