There might be a video for every track on the album, I’m still undecided. Some of the record as a whole talks and thinks about the old and new monocultures and one of the latter is the idea of the algorithm. YouTube rabbit holes are an interesting case of this, and what is served up to us as supposedly related content. Part of the algorithm’s job is to prioritise certain content and part of the game of being a content creator is to constantly create and constantly engage.

I was interested to see what montage style videos might come out like if I were to entrust the algorithm’s choices. So, all the footage used here is scraped from YouTube (credits / references below) but the rule was that I could only take from the top five options from each search I made. I couldn’t dig deep, I could search out the perfect thing. I had to follow what the monocultural algorithm showed me.

So, some of the clips here are a little on the nose, in terms of shining a light on some of the lyrics and themes, but that’s how it is.

Clips used:

“A Year On Holy Island 1995” - classic.tv1985

“Actual Footage of Cell Division (Kidney Cells)” - Hashem Al-Ghaili

“Ants Nest Close Up” - Cow Turtle

“Cell Division Explained In Thread Of Life” - scienceandmore

“Cell Division Time Lapse” - francischeefilms

“Deftones - Lollapalooza 2024 - Full Set” - Matt Martin Loves Metal

“Fugazi - Waiting Room Live 1990” - Half_eaten_chip123

“Honey Bees Make Honey… and Bread? Deep Look

“Mitosis in real time” - Фанат Лум Планет

“Mogwai - Mogwai Fear Satan” - daniels80

“Mogwai - Like Herod (live video with superb soundboard audio)” - einzack

“My Bloody Valentine - To Here Knows When (Live 2008)” - darwin

“My Bloody Valentine - You Made Me Realise (Holocaust Section)(Shrine Expo Hall, LA 2018)” - New Western Front

“SCARIEST MOMENT EVER” - Skip Weeks

“See a Salamander Grow From a Single Cell in this Incredible Time-lapse Short Film Showcase” - National Geographic

“Unemployed Miners March (1927)” - British Pathe

“Voyager 1 Jupiter Approach” - Space-pf9jj

“wild ant hill in the forest super macro close up shot” - Heiko Anders

Back in September 2025, a band with no name travelled up to the extreme north coast of Scotland, to a tiny hamlet called Skerray and over two days made a record. The songs had never been played before, not even rehearsed. My two co-players were Dan Hayes and Harry Rhodes, who I performed and recorded with for many years in ODAS / One Day, After School, so we had a pretty decent understanding of how we worked. We were also recording with our old friend Jamie Lockhart. I think Jamie has recorded pretty much everything I’ve ever done in a studio.

It was super fun to spend all our waking hours making music. We slept in an old crofters cottage that Jamie’s Dad brought back to life during Covid. It is about 10ft from the studio. And we were surrounded by beautiful countryside and the North Sea. On the way home I decided the band was called Falls Of Shin.

The record we made is seven tracks long and it has been pressed onto vinyl. Pre-orders are available now via Bandcamp where you can also get a preview of the opening track 101. If you search out Falls Of Shin on streaming services you should also find our debut release Pyramid Song. Subscribe here to be kept up to date with other upcoming Falls Of Shin happenings.

I run my own bookshop (it’s called Heron & Willow). I also like writing music and making noise (I do that as Falls Of Shin). The Blazing Word is the place I bring those things together via news updates, recommendations, record releases and general thoughts on wider culture.

Like most people, I’m sick to death of the big social media platforms. Aside from their dodgy ethics, they are functionally near to useless (Why? First book recommendation: Enshittification by Cory Doctorow!). I don’t want to spend my life posting brainless content to surf the wave of the algorithm. I want to do the stuff I love (which will make me better at doing said stuff) and occasionally tell you nice people about.

Hence a combined Substack called The Blazing Word. It’d be great if you signed up. You’ll get the odd email from me when I’ve done something but otherwise I’ll leave you alone.