Musician Richard's animated return

Richard Macintyre

WHEN Skye band Stereoglo called it a day a few years ago, frontman Richard Macintyre returned briefly with a solo project, disappeared – and has now spread his wings again as Siiga.

Richard returned to Skye for inspiration, though he now also spends time in Glasgow.

Siiga is the latest guise of a man who likes the DIY approach to music.

And having played and recorded everything on Hollow Bones – the first song in a series he plans to release online throughout the year – Richard has also been pushing his own boundaries further.

When he came up with an idea for a video tale to go with Hollow Bones, he entered the world of animation as a beginner.

But having sent himself on a massive learning curve, he has come up with his own silhouette stop-motion to go with the first song from what will be a complete album, released one song at a time.

Richard explained: "I have always loved this kind of silhouette stop-motion animation, but didn’t have a clue how to make my own.

"I just started by making a tree out of black paper. Then a story came to me and I made a storyboard. It’s a kind of fairytale.

"I liked the idea of something beautiful hidden inside something ugly and came up with the idea of an old hag who only comes out at night, goes on a journey to free herself and brings to life everything she passes."

Richard had some time on his hands at that point, so he began to try to make an animation. He created 2,000 images, cut everything out of black paper, built a light box out of a coffee table and began to painstakingly film each frame – a finger going numb with the effort of pressing down the paper images.

"There were moving parts that had to be hinged. But along the way things changed. The old woman had legs at the start but it became too complicated to move them!"

I was working with just a few frames a second because I wanted it to look quite raw and jerky. But each scene has a moving part – puffs of smoke from a chimney, say – and you just move the pieces fractionally then take the picture."

There was one moment of disaster along the way.

"My knee knocked the lightbox and the whole thing went flying. A good few hundred pictures had to be scrapped."

Richard laughed: "I had to leave it a few hours before I came back to start it all again! I think you have to be a bit obsessive to do it."

But having spent a long time working on his own music with Urban Joe, playing every instrument and making everything perfect before recording, Richard has become more cavalier for Siiga.

"With Hollow Bones, I demoed it, got a mate and a studio and in a day did the track and mixed it. That’s unheard of for me," he laughed. "Before it would have taken three days to crack the song, then a week to muck about with it."

But this time it was done in record time – with the help of studio engineer Iain Hutchison recording and mixing, Richard produced the track, later mastered by Denis Blackham.

"It’s about cutting the deadweight out of life and having folk working with you who see what you’re seeing," he said.

"To say ‘Let’s do it live!’ was a big deal for me, trying to keep it as a performance rather than overpolishing something to death!"

It might be a while before Richard performs any of the Siiga songs live.

"I don’t miss playing – not a bit! I will gig this stuff, but when I feel ready.

"I thought of doing an album, but decided to put it out song by song – a kind of collection that people can add to if they like what they are hearing. These songs started to emerge two summers ago when I went on a sailing trip with my dad around the Shiant Islands, off Lewis and Skye.

"I’ve spent three years writing and planning – and learning my own production style, working out how to get the warm, earthy sound I want."

To hear and buy Richard’s music, go to http://siiga.bandcamp.com/track/hollow-bones and

http://www.facebook.com/siigamusic for news of next track Fall Apart. And to see the animated video for Hollow Bones, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4FkkdugSNg