An amazing foreword to this post via Everything Counts PR:
“Iain Woods’s concept-heavy projects hang somewhere between pop, punk, art, film and prank. His singular, auteurist vision is intensely DIY in it’s ethos, with Woods writing, performing, arranging and producing his own albums (which he describes as ‘conceptual suites’) and designing, producing, directing and editing his own insanely experimental, no-budget videos and shows. Heavily influenced by his time at art-school, his works stem from the page upwards, with him living and breathing every aspect of his conceptual world at a given time. For his debut album, psychologist, Woods slept in a bed of black satin for three years, he wore black satin pyjamas and only wrote or drew on black paper with white or silver ink. This obsessive dedication is apparent in the musicological fabric of the album, which Woods describes as ‘a black and white dream-logic pop universe with tiny flecks of colour trying to come through, like David Lynch fucked Madonna’.
The conceptual rigour does not just appear in his visual world, it always starts with the aural world that the album creates. Woods describes his debut album as ‘An album about a changing mind. The songs all represent an emotional state, and the abrupt changes in style represent how the human mind can make these huge turns in the space of a lifetime or an hour, or sometimes even a second’ he also describes the album as ‘a Trash-pop romp through an existential crisis’. For ‘psychologist’, Woods spent many years collecting samples of his own family and friends speaking about their own experiences of hallucinations, revelations or epiphanies. All of these can be heard throughout the album. Elsewhere, the samples under the music are a home-made library of the history of psychology, creating a surrealist theatre of the subconscious. Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, Fritz Perls and R.D Laing can all be heard speaking on the album. Other samples include a baby’s heartbeat (Smoke) an MRI scanner (The Psychologist) and the silence from his brother’s room after he had had his heart broken (Forbidden).
All of the trumpets for the album were recorded in Sigmund Freud’s bedroom. All of the strings were recorded in Kingsley Hall (The home of R.D Laing’s controversial ‘Philadelphia Association’ experiment).
With international gigs, 8 more videos in his ‘Autophobe Cycle’ video-suite, and the music industry slowly starting to turn their heads to listen to this strange sound, 2015 looks very exciting for Iain Woods, the world’s weirdest new pop-star.
Iain Woods was born in Coventry in 1986 and lives and works in London.
psychologist is out now on Lovely Face for Radio.”
My take on this video is this – An almost movie like beginning that would make a very good horror film. The music sounds as if it is in desperate need of something, oh .. I know what! A DJ to spin it! Seriously, it could easily go into a club. Since I’m wanting to go into music myself, I should ask him for his secret. (Don’t worry Iain, I won’t tell.)
Good for the party life, just what the doctor ordered and lets face it shall we? Magic. I know it sounds silly, but if you listen, I know you’ll like it.
I have a feeling that he is going to make a very big splash in the pop industry. I can’t wait to hear him on my radio, I can tell you that much!
Although, one can’t help but wonder this: How is he not super famous!?
Because honestly, he is that good, that it’s unbelievable.
Do you know how it feels to be hypnotized? No? Well this song will take you to that point and allow you to travel beyond the confines of your own mind.
You can’t stop yourself from thinking that if he had any of his vision put into this video, that he’d make a great movie director as well as a musical artist.
I can foresee great crowds in his future.
I don’t know how old he is, but I think I have a music crush! (Don’t tell my parents, they say I can’t date until I’m married.) Though it may not work out, at least I could say I dated an amazing artist. A girl can dream!