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The wonderful world of Ashley Cook

Pictured above: Down the Rabbit Hole, Begin Afresh, & We are Nature by Ashley Cook

We know that many of you are already enjoying our new album, Acid Croft Vol 9. We have had a lot of admiring messages about the art work, so we thought you might like to know a bit more about the artist behind the cover image, Ashley Cook.

Ashley is an acclaimed printmaker who is a double-graduate from the Glasgow School of Art. Her work is found in collections all over the world, and in Scotland you can find it at Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery, the Scotland Office, Creative Scotland, Arts in Fife and the Bank of Scotland among many other private locations.

The image chosen for the cover of the album is entitled The Gift of Abundance and was found by Quee when we were looking for visual inspiration to go with the music. The image itself resonated strongly with the band as it incorporates many echoes of former albums, not to mention a very ‘acid’ colour palette!

Here’s what Ashley says about this work:

“The Gift of Abundance was made early 2014.  Leading up to Indyref, Scotland seemed to have come alive with a newfound sense of identity. The immediate world around me seemed full of optimism with a landscape of possibilities opening up wide, the word on the lips of nearly all the artistic community was YES, it felt like a golden moment. 

“The Gift of Abundance is a nod to Botticelli’s Birth of Venus, the Goddess of love borne in on the sea. Butterflies are a symbol of transformation, change could be difficult but may hold a future with more hope, the tartan stockings, and sporran; emblems of the souvenir shop identity of the Scots known the world over, the thistles, stag antlers and fish our flora and fauna. A small country, but rich in natural resources – Scotland has the gift of abundance. 

“I am really delighted to have this image on Acid Croft Volume 9, I’ve been playing my copy in the studio and the music can transport me back to living in that golden moment of early 2014 again.”

If you would like to buy any of the prints shown above please visit Ashley’s Etsy shop Ashley Cook’s work is featured in a new exhibition launching on 25 September at Scotland Art in Bath Street, Glasgow Highly recommended!

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How we made the Caravan Up North video

  • Garry spots Kaela in the crystal ball
  • Eilidh tends the wayward cows
  • Ewan scans the horizon
  • Ewan spots Kaela, the happy camper
  • Quee stops for lunch
  • A wizard appears through the trees
  • Shooglenifty’s patchword field
  • Malcolm’s garage

We know that lots of you have been loving our Caravan Up North video. Here’s a short insight into what on earth we were thinking when putting it together, written by James.

The Caravan Up North set contains a tune by Ewan and a traditional song. The tune was inspired by the title of a highland tour that our erstwhile agent was trying to put together in 2014. The Caravan Up North Tour! We kid you not. The song, An Robh Thu ‘Sa Bheinn or Were You in the Hills? is about losing cattle in the hills, check out the song lyrics here >>

We had planned to get together in July and make some more videos for the new album in the highlands. However, that was logistically difficult just coming out of Covid restrictions so instead we put together plans to do another ‘lockdown’ style video in our respective locales (see Black Dog – for previous form!). The theme was camping and generally holidaying in the highlands. Each band member was also instructed to film themselves playing the track against a grassy background with the hope that we could kind of make it look like we were all in the same field! 

Malcolm’s brainwave was to add the toy car and caravan scenes and his daughter Phoebe did a fabulous job painting the backdrop. The fort and garage are actually toys that Malcolm’s grandfather made for him. Everyone sent their contributions to our manager Jane-Ann, who edited it all together. She had the idea of trying some rudimentary green screen placing Malcolm inside his own toy scenes.

My personal inspiration was those slightly surreal videos the Old Grey Whistle Test made for bands that couldn’t be in the studio. In the end though, each band member had their own ‘style’ making the final edit look like Tom Weir meets Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention! Necessity is the mother of invention after all.

Caravan Up North is available on our brand new album Acid Croft Vol 9, buy your copy here >> And if you haven’t seen the video yet, you can find it here >>

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