Theatrical prog-pop maximalists The Scaramanga Six are celebrating 30 years of delightfully odd music this year with the release of not one but two new albums. The first, GLUT, was released in the spring to huge appreciation in these parts (check out our Mansell’s positively foaming review here), and its successor DEARTH is looming on the horizon, with pre-orders opening on 3rd October.
To prepare the world for the madness that will undoubtedly ensue, we are delighted to bring you a first glimpse into the maelstrom with the video for lead single ‘Mind Control’. Predictable only in their unpredictability, the Sheffield four-piece serve us up a cauldron full of creeping staccato strings and joyous wordplay, crashing into crescendos and lurching into choruses willy nilly, all transported in the video to a sinister living museum.
Guitar/Vocalist Paul Morricone gives us a glimpse into the creative process behind the video:
Last year, I started working with Generative AI to explore what it could do. I found that I really enjoyed it when it went wrong, hence the early video for ‘Hully Gully‘ featuring us reanimated as stupid, long-tongued dancers in some kind of urban wasteland. Since then, the quality and usability of GenAI has moved at a rapid pace so that nowadays the boundaries between what is real and what isn’t is continually blurred.
However, as a boss of a video production company, I am painfully aware of how GenAI is being used to cut corners and jettison traditional quality filming and animating production. There is no replacement for authenticity and realism though, no matter how good the tech gets. You can make things explode, but you cannot replicate a documentary-style interview with a husband who lost his wife to heart disease for a charity campaign. Even now, I liken the use of GenAI as a replacement for people as a complete fraud. Why would you want your mouthpiece to be an avatar and expect anyone to believe anything you supposedly say? It is akin to making the lips on a mannequin move, such is the insincerity.
So that became my starting point for these new videos. If GenAI is essentially making dummies move, then that’s exactly what I’m going to do. I decided to go to places where you can find mannequins and lifeless shapes and take some photos – dusty old regional museums, art galleries, statue parks, taxidermists. I then limited my AI process purely to image-to-video, using only real photos I had either taken or gathered, then prompting them to do strange things. The end result offered a bizarre realism, where mundane and unlit domestic photos come to life. All this only works if you know how to create a good narrative, or are a decent editor with an ear for music. Luckily, I’ve been directing videos for 30 years.
In ‘Mind Control’, I base the story around the happenings of former glory of a victorian seaside town in the northeast of England. I decided that the demonic little girl in her smock at home already looked possessed, so I ramped it all up, making her control all the other exhibits around her. I took a little creative license and also incorporated images of “La Pascualita”, a very life-like bridal shop mannequin in Mexico that is famed for supposedly being made from the real corpse of a jilted bride.
This video was made back in April of this year, but we’ve been waiting to release it until now. I was worried that the pace of development with GenAI would have superseded this effort by now, but the awkwardness and decidedly low-fi approach seems to have held up, especially as most people try to make something Hollywood with the tools. No-one seems to be making the mundane even worse.
Pre-order The Scaramanga Six’s new album DEARTH via Bandcamp from Friday 3rd October
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Article by Paul Maps
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