Today, Eyes of Others follow up ‘New Hair, New Me’ with a brand new track and the second video in a trilogy, directed by Niall Trask titled ‘Big Companies, Large Tentacles.’
Talking about the track, John said:
A while ago I visited Sigmund Freud’s old house. I stared at his couch in his study for a good five minutes. I thought of all the twisted souls who would take up there as he went about his psychoanalysis and excavations of the mind.
Big Companies, Large Tentacles, is an ode to a turbulent session on Freud’s couch. Where words are not enough, overwhelmed by emotions and dust particles permeating the psyche, it is something to be purged and tossed into an acid bath with a sort of gay abandon.
Once again shot somewhere in Norway by Rob Jarvis, John said about the video:
“It was the coldest of the three but also the hottest. Seesawing between -18°C and 90 °C and at the mercy of the director, I was driven from church to sauna and back again on some sort of physical and spiritual quest for something or other.”
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Eyes of Others, is the studio alias of Edinburgh based John Bryden, a self-christened ‘post-pub couldn’t get in the club’ producer, the self-titled debut album, which will be released on Friday 19th May 2023.
To try and list all Eyes of Others’ musical touch points would be a thankless task but nestled playfully – and seductively – in his sonic palette are an abundance of carefree electronics, hypnotic dub, wry folk rock, twitchy psychedelia and buoyant acid techno. In other words, pure musical freedom. If it wasn’t for the fact that Eyes of Others began as a side hustle, you’d be praising the ambition of such a mesmerising pop art collage. But then maybe such creativity and experimentation is the result of approaching the music in a pressure-free environment. Bryden certainly thinks so.
“It’s almost like when I stopped trying to find success, it kind of…” he hesitates, not wanting to get ahead of himself. “I’m not saying there’s success, the album’s not even out yet, but it’s been a… I think it’s a slow burn. I’m not in a hurry.”
The release of the self-titled Eyes of Others debut album will soon cause Bryden to reassess his evaluation of success. Marrying the anything-goes, freestyle magpie tendencies of Beck and The Beta Band to the electronic stylings of primetime 80s New Order by way of the spacious moods conjured by King Tubby, its whimsical demeanour is the perfect sonic balm to the utter confusion of the outside world. As is that sense of almost Balearic musical freedom. Such a mindset is fundamental to the music according to Bryden.
Coming in at a brisk 41 minutes, the album reveals its manifold charms immediately, but also does so in a meandering, nuanced and irreverent fashion.
READ MORE ABOUT THE ALBUM HERE
Eyes of Others will be playing live at Sounds From Other City, Kite Festival and Sea Change Weekender this summer.
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