Back in October last year Moon Landing aka multi instrumentalist Jake McCrea won our annual Kickstart programme.
As a result, we sent Jake to Manor Park studios to work with Neal Calderwood on a new single.
The result of that collaboration is ‘The Last Two People On Earth‘, a beautifully crafted epic that maintains Jake’s upward trajectory as one to watch.
We have come to expect a rich textured sound and Jake doesn’t disappoint. The ever present currents of melancholy that define Moon Landing’s sound are here but the stirring strings and soothing vocals leave us with an air of hope by the climax.
Don’t forget you can catch Moon Landing live at Stendhal Festival later this summer as a result of Kickstart.
“‘The Last Two People on Earth’ is a very personal song to me for sentimental reasons. It is essentially a love song, but I didn’t want to write a classic love song.
Instead, I wanted to incorporate some pretty surreal imagery; in this case it depicts an Armageddon-style apocalyptic end of the world and how we, as humans, are ultimately powerless in our demise but how there can be beauty and love even in our worst moments.
The writing of it was hugely inspired by The Flaming Lips and while a lot of my songs have a melancholy element to them, I think this song is my most uplifting song yet and a bit of a change in sound for me.
I had an amazing time in recording it in Manor Park Studios with Neal Calderwood. I’d never been there before as I’ve always typically used Start Together Studios and Half Bap Studios for previous work.
Moon Landing with Neal Calderwood - Manor Park - Photography by Aaron Cunningham
So it was really great for a change in scenery in Manor Park, it’s a really stunning studio in the middle of beautiful still countryside with no noise at all! Neal is brilliant to work with as well, we had a lot of fun making this single.
We especially enjoyed finding bass tones for the song as we ended up using a synth bass for it which sounds completely ridiculous! It works so well in the song and I don’t know if people can fully make it out in the recording, but the bass is this ridiculous sounding Bootsy Collins-esque synth bass that just sounded too good not to put in!
We were then joined in the studio by Rhiannon Mulligan who played violin on the track. She’s an incredible violinist and really brings so much to all the Moon Landing tracks that she’s played on and she has so much patience to work with me! I’m just constantly throwing melodies and random notes and ideas at her and she always makes it sound brilliant!
I then had a photoshoot with Aaron Cunningham who is amazing to work with! We just had a really simple setup in house with a projector and projecting different images over my face, mostly spacey imagery. It worked brilliantly and turned out brilliantly with an amazing set of shots to accompany my single that I’m so proud of!
I’m so grateful to Chordblossom for this opportunity and I really can’t wait for everyone to see what I’ve come up with as I think it’s my best work to date!“
Acknowledgements & Thanks
We love running Kickstart each year but the reality is that it wouldn’t happen without the support and assistance from a huge range of individuals. Thank you for your support and for playing your part in promoting and developing artists within the music scene in Northern Ireland.
- Lee & Emma
- Third Bar Artist Development
- Manor Park Recording Studio
- Broken Film NI
- Stendhal Festival of Art
- Butter Wouldn’t Melt
- Avcunningham Photography
