INTRODUCING: Mull Historical Society

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTdv08kpSbU

Twenty-five years into a career that has seen him become one of Scotland’s most celebrated and inventive songwriters, Mull Historical Society returns with one of his most ambitious projects to date. In My Mind There’s A Photograph sees Colin MacIntyre bringing together music and literature in deeply personal fashion, collaborating with an extraordinary lineup of award-winning authors including Irvine Welsh, Ali Smith and Alexander McCall Smith. Built around photographs that hold profound meaning for each writer, the album transforms memory, identity, loss and place into vivid, emotionally resonant songs. Expanding on the conceptual world first explored on In My Mind There’s A Room, MacIntyre continues to blur the boundaries between storytelling, songwriting and lived experience, crafting a record that feels both intimate and global in scope.

Your new album In My Mind There’s A Photograph is built around collaborations with acclaimed authors—what sparked the idea of pairing literature and music in such a direct, conceptual way?

As an author myself I am always fascinated with with other writers and their process. Joining literature and music felt very instinctive to me because it is all one thing: storytelling. My grandfather on Mull was the island’s bank manager and also an acclaimed poet, he was known as ‘the Bard of Mull’ and so I grew up at his feet admiring and listening to him. The first album in this series, ‘In My Mind There’s A Room’, actually came about because I got to go back to my grandfather’s old flat above the bank in Tobermory as it was amazingly transformed into a recording studio. The new album has replaced the ‘room’ theme with ‘photographs’ - the authors collaborating with me on commissioned words on a single significant photograph to them. I didn’t know when I was making the “Room” album that this was going to become a series, but it became pretty clear to me after finishing the last album that I enjoyed the creative challenge and ambition, and also that it was a fresh was for me to challenge format. I’m also looking to do new things but hopefully these albums have close links with my MHS releases to date. The are songs about humans living in the world and all my songs will, and are, about that. But yes, the exploratory element appeals too, getting to expand my collaborative skills and it is exciting to be given a chance to enter the ‘frames’ of these talented authors from around the globe in such an intimate way. I always want to learn and gain insight through my creativity and this provides an opportunity to do this, while always wedding my two worlds of music and writing.

You’ve described your role as being like “the Elton to their Bernie”—how did you approach translating such personal, image-driven writing into songs while still making them feel cohesive as a record?

Them being "Bernie to my Elton” has been fun and also insightful for me as someone who has always written my own words with my songs. But then I am using many words in my books and other creativity, so it is quite refreshing to have the starting point of the author’s words, and of course, their images too. Some of the authors I knew a little already, and I have collaborated with Irene Welsh before when I gave a song for a TV film he wrote. But I admire them all and simply reached out, a few I’d met at literary festivals and such. After the room concept I just knew it was going to be photographs — and now I realise several of my songs have ‘photograph' in the lyrics (Watching Xanadu, The Final Arrears, The Lights…) so they are a universal thing. The authors have taken me around the world in a sense, from Gaza to 9-11, Inverness to China. I also feel that the project is thing a light on human suffering and asking ‘why is one person’s image of home, another person's image of war?’ What ultimately makes them cohesive as songs on an album is that they are all about human lives and how they are effected by different environments/changes/challenges/beauty, and on and on…

The lead single “Cattle Bells” with Alexander McCall Smith reflects on memory, place, and identity—how did that particular collaboration set the tone for the rest of the album?

Good question as ’Sandy’ is someone I’ve known for a while and who has been very generous and giving in his encouragement of younger authors. He is an inspiration and so prolific. His words were immediately impactful on me, a beauty and a sense of rhythm already instilled. His photo is of him on a hill overlooking the Kalahari in his native Botswana. I have always loved and admired the Paul Simon ‘Gracelands’ album and Sandy’s story and image provided the perfect opportunity to collaborate with the London African Gospel Choir on the album. Collaboration begets collaboration. Thanks to Sandy!

You’ve been juggling multiple creative projects—music, novels, and even a musical production—how do these different disciplines influence each other in your work?

They are all connected in some sense. I have a lot of ideas and melodies always floating around so having multiple ‘outlets’ hopefully ensures that I don’t put them all into one thing! My debut novel was adapted for the stage and I loved entering the world of theatre, and a musical feels instinctively like a good way of encompassing the visual, dialogue and song all in one thing.

Following the success of In My Mind There’s A Room, what do you feel this new album says about where you are creatively right now, and what listeners should expect from this next chapter of Mull Historical Society?

I hope it says that I am always pushing myself creatively and to challenge format. The artists I admire do this instinctively and those are the paths I follow. But all my 10 MHS records to date have themes of loss, community, imagery, human lives, cultural and technology change, war and more within them, so this is continuation but also 12 new songs, 12 acclaimed storytellers, and me entering their frames.