The video, co-directed by Joel Anderson and Matt Scharenbroich, is a careful crafted animation of a performance of the song by Whitmore. The inspiration for the clip came to Anderson after watching the song live, where he noticed that the lyrics ‘conjured images of the rise and fall of humanity and history repeating itself’. The clip was then brought to life by the animation of Scharenbroich.
‘Civilisations’ comes from Whitmore’s album Radium Death, released in March. The album is a slight departure from his earlier music, which was pretty sparse folk music with his singing accompanied by a sole banjo or acoustic guitar. On Radium Death Whitmore channelled Dylan circa 1965 and went electric, perhaps not to the same extent but with the same intention to broaden the sonic horizons of his music.
“I purposefully went into it wanting to make a little bit of a departure, sonically, using an electric guitar a little bit more and adding more instrumentation, more full-band type stuff,” said Whitmore.
The effect of this change of mindset can be seen in songs like ‘Civilisations’ and make for an interesting listening.
For more information, visit: http://williamelliottwhitmore.com/
