Artist: Alison Eales
Title: Mox Nox
Format: Digital single
Cat#: Fika094SG3
Release date: 9th March 2023
Bandcamp | Spotify
Mox Nox is the title track and third single to be taken from Alison Eales’ debut album. Mox Nox is a lyric constructed around sundial mottos, including the title itself (‘Night, shortly’). Opening with glockenspiel played by Joanne Murtagh (Remember Remember) it builds one instrument at a time, featuring strings, flute, autoharp, dulcimer and kalimba.
“I always liked the idea of using shadow puppets for this video, as it’s so in keeping with the sundial theme, but I didn’t think I had the skill to do it myself. Then I saw Manual Cinema’s beautiful work on the 2021 Candyman film.
https://manualcinema.com/work/candyman
I loved the starkness of the figures, and it inspired me to have a go at silhouette animation. I used Powerpoint to create the characters and backgrounds, and then superimposed them over time lapse footage of the sky outside my flat at sunset.”
Alison is a long-standing member of the band Butcher Boy, playing piano, accordion and other keyboards as well as arranging for choir and brass. The band’s three studio albums: Profit in Your Poetry (2007), React or Die (2009) and Helping Hands (2011) have all been well-received, with React or Die featuring in The Times’ top 100 pop albums of the 2000s. The band have also released two EPs. A compilation album, You Had A Kind Face, was released on Needle Mythology in 2022, along with three new songs, with tracks mastered by Miles Showell at Abbey Road. Butcher Boy have supported Belle and Sebastian, Scritti Politti The Wedding Present and more.
Alison is also a member of Glasgow Madrigirls and has collaborated with bands including The Color Waves (USA), The Just Joans (Glasgow) and Featherfin (Norway).
Mox Nox is released on vinyl and digitally in March 2023 on Fika Recordings.
“Mox Nox lifts its title from one such sundial motto, fittingly translating as Soon, Nightfall, the track is Alison at her most stripped back, nodding in equal parts to Monkey Swallows The Universe and Sunday Morning-era Velvet Underground. The production, courtesy of Paul Savage at the famous Chem 19 studios, is fantastic throughout, as Alison’s poised vocal and looping ukelele are adorned by the distant fizz of echoing strings plaintive woodwinds and subtle percussive flourishes, adding gorgeous texture to the sonic landscape.” For The Rabbits [video premiere]
