The Last Inklings announce their debut album

The Last Inklings

The Last Inklings, Leonardo MacKenzie and David Hoyland, are former members of Kadia who performed a mix traditional and original folk inspired songs with their debut release East Of Alexandria (2015) featuring in the Telegraph’s Top Folk Albums.

Leonardo MacKenzie is a classically trained cellist with 15 years of live session work in studios across the country alongside producers including Mark Tucker (Portishead, Jethro Tull, Show Of Hands, Fairport Convention); and musicians such as Ninebarrow (BBC Radio 2 Folk Award Nominees) and John Parker (Nizlopi, Ward Parker).

David Hoyland began his musical career as a percussionist playing drums in jazz, blues and rock bands. With a largely grass roots musical education and experience of songwriting, David now also runs Impossible Audio, a studio offering mixing, mastering and composition for film, TV and video games soundtracks.

The new debut album The Impossible Wild will be launched with an autumn tour and preceded by the release of three singles, the first ‘Hunter’s Folly’, followed by ‘Sleeping Giant’ and then ‘Vespers’. Each song will be accompanied by a standalone stop frame animated video adapted to allow each video to link seamlessly with the next to form an interlinked trilogy and a potential short film.

The 12-track debut album, The Impossible Wild, explores the role of nature, myth and superstition in the modern world. The album is a wonderful celebration of storytelling that uses symphonic arrangements and narrative lyrics to conjure up a variety of themes and imagery. Through the lens of music and metaphor, The Last Inklings explore contemporary issues including mental health, personal wellbeing and growth, and our impact on the environment.

The three singles to be released from the album; ‘Hunter’s Folly’, ‘Sleeping Giant’ and ‘Vespers’, create an animated video trilogy, the three videos themed around nature and the supernatural. The concept of creating stop frame animated videos was conceived during the first lockdown in Spring 2020. Handmade from paper and felt by the band, with character design and creation by model maker Lou Vickery and Leonardo MacKenzie.

The concept of the impossible wild has many interpretations, some more intangible than others. Not just the fantastical and imagined creatures of myth and folklore, but also the hidden and unexplored reaches of the human psyche. The cover artwork takes a seemingly simple natural image of a yew tree in a beautiful landscape but twists it, the unnatural mirroring of the scene causing an unsettling pause, requiring the viewer to look more closely to identify the cause.

Artists’ website: https://www.thelastinklings.co.uk/

‘Sleeping Giant’ – official video: