This Is Hope

The groove of "Peculiar" gets the album off to an excellent start. This archetypal pop ditty (it even has "ooh oohs") owes much of its sound to the irony of bands such as Barenaked Ladies, XTC and also Frank Zappa's Cruising with Ruben and the Jets. The near-ballad of "Death of a Scientist" descends into a semi-ELO-esque prog-rock epic but never becomes pretentious. The piano-driven "Your Love, My Gain" is a brilliantly written piece of music, the self-deprecating lyric providing the track with a Ben Folds Five feel. The orchestration and the falsetto harmonies that appear on "Len" draw influence from the classic power ballads of the 60s, something which the likes of Divine Comedy have used to great effect over the last couple of years.

This album is bursting with quality. Mull Historical Society are unafraid to use bold musical arrangements while not obscuring the pure excellence of McIntyre's melodies. The result is a very fresh, clean and honest sound. --Jamie Clark

"Peculiar"
"Peculiar" is "Xanadu" a few years on. She's still a free spirit but also a bit closed, like the girl in black in The Breakfast Club. The guy singing about her in "Watching Xanadu" has now got the girl, but is frightened as they get older that he might lose her "I'm not cool anymore". The song is the evolution of their family. They're a bit weird, even their son.

"How 'Bout I Love You More"
This was inspired by Leonardo Da Vinci's early drawings for flight and transport. It's about the evolution of ideas in this field, mechanical innovation and advancement. It's also a comment on progress, asking "Why?" Why do we have to make planes and cars if we can die in them? Why do we have to make weapons if we can kill each other with them? It's about the relationship between man and machine. But also, f*** it! How 'bout I just love you more?

"Treescavengers"
It's about reaching out to somebody close to you who is in trouble and who you think you can help. It might not be wanted but you have to dare to ask in order to try and make a difference. It's trying to make them see that there is hope. But for them, is hope an option or not?

"This Is the Hebrides"
This was written in America's deep south: New Orleans, specifically. Somehow my geography and homeland of the Hebrides seemed closer to me when I was there. It features an Alabama preacher the language of these people partly inspired the album title. It's also about war and the battle for geography; newspaper headlines and American TV news channels. America is at war with Iraq, and parts of Europe, politically. And not so long ago it was at war with itself. A capitalist society can ultimately breed George W Bush as President Š

"Tobermory Zoo"
Tobermory is the village I'm from on Mull. I wrote the chorus when I was 17. It's about the old characters that were around when I was a kid. They were eccentric and aloof to the trends and fashions of the outside world. The song is imagining the breakdown of those people and their community values it's about the debate between the individual and the collective.

"JFK"
I wrote the lyrics in America watching a documentary on him. The song is saying that community values can't be measured on a flipchart. We can learn from the humour and values of these characters from the past.

"Death Of A Scientist (A Vision Of Man Over Machine, 2004)"
It's about Dr Kelly speaking from the afterlife. He is observing his public demise and seeing things more clearly. The line "I used to know a man" is him observing himself. I took some of the lyrics from the newspaper articles at the time. At the moment of his greatest physical pain suicide he found clarity and love. I watched the play Justifying War, the one based on the Hutton Inquiry, with my Dictaphone turning. Life and politics both still go on after his death. But people are turning off to politicians and the climate of grin and spin.

"Your Love, My Gain"
This was inspired by the BBC series One Life. I watched an episode that was based on a 12-year-old girl who was trying to help her alcoholic mother go into rehab for the first time. She was effectively the parent to her mother. The song is written in the first person from what I imagined to be her point of view. She is asking, "When I am old enough to be a child?" The middle section of the song ascends with what sounds to me like Flash Gordon pianos. That's the point she has momentarily reached hope.

"Casanova At The Weekend"
It's about human cloning. It's about a man and woman. They are Mork & Mindy for the cloning generation. He is from another planet and has been cloned so that his "makers" can observe our planet and life. The clone is losing himself in our society and is choosing to be a lad ("Casanova") out partying at the weekend, and is the city exec during the week ("laptop lunch"). She is wishing he would just be himself. He's turning into a monster who can't feel. It's turning into Frankenstein & Mindy.

"My Friend The Addict"
This song is about trying to talk to somebody with addiction problems, trying to make them see that they don't have to keep choosing the wrong route and repeating the same mistakes. There is still time for them to beat it, but they keep running.

"Len"
It's written in the voice of the parents of somebody who is struggling to "out" themselves sexually, saying that they always knew. It's acceptance from the most unlikely source the parents. It's unconditional love we can "take anything on" as long as we are together.

"In The Next Life (A Reqiuem)"
This song was inspired by my grandmother's death at the end of last year. It also features my other gran from Mull on guest vocals, as well as two lines from my grandfather's poetry "You will come with me, my Queen, for all men risk a fall." I discovered the gospel singers in New Orleans. I went to the house where Mahalia Jackson was born and also visited Mount Moriah Baptist Church, where she began her career. I found three singing sisters and recorded them right there and then. The song is also about the core life fabrics: love, death, and work. The Austrian girl who speaks during the song was recorded spontaneously as I was recording hitting a drum in the studio courtyard. My gran is saying that one of these days ("Tomorrow") she might talk about another life fabric that has shuffled to the top of the pack. It's about reconciliation in another life with those we love. Don't forget to say it before it's too late.