How To Let Go – blanket

You might have noticed a short film on social media and further afield with The Fylde Coast as its backdrop. Blackpool Social Club found out how a Blackpool based band created their latest music video talking to and featuring a number of creatives from the town.

With the touring industry on hold and opportunities to perform to a live audience at a minimum, blanket put their newfound time to good use. Using the basis of their hauntingly beautiful debut record, ‘How To Let Go’, the Blackpool band has remixed, reworked, and ultimately reexamined the intent behind an original project. Divesting the record into its constituent parts and rebuilding to create something new; The Cinematic Reworkings.

Across the 6 track reimagining, they explore orchestral themes present in the record, focusing on provoking string sections, comprising of cello, viola, and violin and arresting grand piano compositions (How To Let Go, Beacons, Our Tired Hearts). While simultaneously amplifying darker, electronic, ambient tones and textures (Turn Ourselves to Stone and A Sky Filled with Ghosts.)

The result aims to create a score for our current times, and one that echoes contemporary film composers such as Zimmer, Reznor and Greenwood. One part intense, aphotic soundtrack promoting the introspection of our darkest moments, and one part reviving an auditory glimmer of optimism that provides conciliation towards something like hope in the face of an uncertain future.

blanket makes no secret of their love for the silver screen, skilled filmmakers themselves, they set out to provide a moving picture to accompany their soundtrack. At the genesis of this, came Covid-19, the impact of which has been felt across the globe, but perhaps more significantly in their hometown of Blackpool. A town once a haven for entertainment and the arts, has seen an arduous and systemic decline begin to accelerate during the pandemic.

Blackpool a staunchly northern town, which stands firm in the face of adversity, the band found an independent community striving to survive in their ‘new normal’. A close-knit society of independent businesses, local artists, family restaurants, music venues, theatres, cinemas all pulling together to realise a renaissance in the creative community, despite the bleak outlook for the historic seaside town.

The film partnered with local art organisations LeftCoast and Blackpool Social Club to complete the mini-documentary entitled ‘First Light’, featuring a series of short interviews that offer a varied insight into the process and realities for this community in the last few months. Set against the beautiful, but the oftentimes bleak backdrop of the seaside town aims to provide an honest account of lived experiences.

WATCH THE FIRST LIGHT DOC – OUT NOW

TRACKLISTING

1. How To Let Go (Cinematic Rework)
2. Beacons (Cinematic Rework)
3. Worlds Collide (Cinematic Rework)
4. Our Tired Hearts (Cinematic Rework)
5. A Sky Filled With Ghosts (Cinematic Rework)
6. Turn Ourselves To Stone (Cinematic Rework)

‘First Light’ Documentary

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