Music Video: William Elliott Whitmore – “Civilizations”
Media | Oct 15th, 2015
Singer-songwriter William Elliott Whitmore’s new album Radium Death is out now and Country Weekly premiered his music video for “Civilizations” this morning. Whitmore has thos to say about the video and song: “This song is for everyday folks trying to get along in an increasingly chaotic world. Societies crumble, but people persevere.” You can watch the music video below as well.
The accompanying video took several months to create and delivers an artfully animated performance of the song by Whitmore set within an evocative sepia tone world and written images of the song’s lyrics. The clip was co directed by Joel Anderson and animator Matt Scharenbroich. The initial inspiration came from Anderson, who after watching Whitmore perform the song live, took note of how the lyrics conjured images of the rise and fall of humanity and history repeating itself. Whitmore also gives much credit to Scharenbroich for driving this video home with his very impressive animation skills.
Whitmore will be performing at the celebrated “Stagecoach Festival” in Indio Californian on April 29th and May 1st of 2016.
While previous recordings featured the troubadour’s powerful voice accompanied by just a banjo or acoustic guitar and the occasional foot stomp, Radium Death finds Whitmore backed by a full band on most tracks. “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,” he says.
Raised on a farm in Iowa and inspired early on by the insurgent sounds of The Jesus Lizard, Bad Brains and Minutemen, Whitmore sketched out the songs of Radium Death between feeding animals and tending crops. Every week he would travel to his cousin’s studio where they would record the tracks, much of the time with additional musicians playing along. As a result songs hum with an exigent electricity—whether amplified or not. They also present a cohesive look into the recurring Whitmore themes of respect, protection, sustenance and survival.
