Ellery Twining Pays a Perfect Tribute To One Of The UK’s Finest On ‘Weatherall’

The 17^th of February 2020 was a sad day for anyone who knows anything about the acid house scene that swept through England in the 90s’. On that day, one of the country's most talented producers and DJs, Andrew Weatherall, hopped off this mortal coil.

 It’s incredible to think that his first meaningful day in the studio produced the classic Happy Monday’s ‘Hallelujah’ remix, a song that has since become synonymous with the Madchester scene. Ellery Twining may come out of the United States, but the man who shaped modern English music in such a pivotal way clearly had a lasting impact on the artist. 

‘Weatherall’ is the first single taken from Ellery’s debut album ‘Revenge’; musically, it’s a far cry from anything its namesake was widely associated with. The bare acoustic guitars and spoken lyrics are more akin to fellow East Coast artist The Pixies, however, its poignant lyrics perfectly encapsulate what it feels like to lose an inspiration. “We built a disco in the attic / Played your records / To get the people to dance / Under any circumstance” croons Twining, in a poetic tribute to a man that would have loved the sentiment of DIY raves and homegrown music scenes. 

The music video is where the tribute elements really come to life. Bringing in talent such as video editor James Canty, best known for his work on Catfish and the Bottlemen’s iconic ‘Hourglass’ featuring Ewan McGregor, was sure to help. 

Snippets of household raves and smalltown gigs are spliced between stills of old-school posters and tickets that hark back to the DIY attitude of the music scene before the digital age. We finally catch glimpses of the aforementioned sparse house that holds attic raves as we see the patron’s shadows lick up the walls like the flames of a fire. From afar, it’s hard to tell what this small little attic in Connecticut meant to the local community, but the devastation of its loss depicted in the video is hard not to feel in the gut. Like Weatherall and the iconic Hacienda nightclub, its hard to appreciate something fully until it’s gone. 

As our protagonists look in futility for friends in the town that once seemed so alive, we get the sense of hopeless despair that many can relate to. That sense of loss is compounded as they scatter the pictures of their memories across the cold concrete floor. 

The music is poignant, but the video adds incredibly to the sense of heartbreak ‘Weatherall' brilliantly portrays. The ultimate worthless endeavour of trying to create something organic in an increasingly plastic and over-indulgent society is shown at its bitter best throughout the spliced scenes. ‘Weatherall’ is about the death of a scene, the death of a man and the death of a world that, no matter how hard we try, will never come back. 

James Ogden 

Image: 'Revenge' Official Album Artwork