Suffering is a common motif in art, but few have plumbed the depths to reach such sublime heights as Oscar Wilde.
Jailed for his sexuality, the playwright, poet, and wit wrote a lengthy letter to Lord Alfred Douglas, and it's clarity of thought has seen it become a literary classic.
DeProfundis can still inspire long after Wilde's untimely death, and communion with the work helped propel one of Trembling Bells' finest moments.
The Glasgow acid folk group have sculpted new song 'I'm Coming', a brave and moving return, perhaps the band at their most direct.
Alex Neilson explains…
"This is one of the more accessible songs that I've written. Lyrically it's very much in debt to Oscar Wilde's DeProfundis. I heard a broadcast of it on BBC Radio 3 a couple of years ago read by the actor Stephen Rea."
"It was one of those 'I had to pull over the car' moments that people talk about. Just incredibly moving as a study in suffering and transcendence and culpability. The fact that the recipient of the letter, Lord Alfred Douglas, didn't even read it is heartbreaking. I can still remember some of the phrases from it: 'Behind every new born child or new born star there is pain…' It's making me quite tearful to think about it."
"Again, I wanted the end section to sound like a gigantic structure rusting in the middle of the sea. So, it turned out to be accessible against the intentions of its creator."
Tom Chick directed the full visuals, a largely improvised affair filmed in an abandoned mental asylum outside of Glasgow and on the roof of a 1970’s utopian architectural monstrosity in Cumbernauld.
Tune in now.
Catch Trembling Bells at the following shows:
April
3 Edinburgh Sneaky Pete’s
4 Sheffield Hallam Student Union
6 Preston The Continental
7 Leeds Hyde Park Book Club
8 Todmordon The Golden Lion
9 Leicester The Musician
10 Coventry The Tin Music & Arts
11 London Venue tbc
12 Brighton The Brunswick
13 Winchester The Railway
14 Newbury Ace Arts Space
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