The music video for “The Blackest Crow” is out now
Alberta old-time musician, folk music scholar, and ethnomusicologist Mike Tod is announcing the release of his debut self-titled LP, set for release on April 13. With the announcement comes a haunting one-take video for the lead single, “The Blackest Crow,” inspired by slow-burning western epics.
Directed by Gillian McKercher, who has previously created videos for Cartel Madras and Amy Nelson, the video was filmed in Alberta’s Rocky Mountain foothills at the CL Ranch, which was used in the 2007 cult favourite, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.
“I wanted this video to be approached like a scene out of a movie,” said Mike Tod. “It sort of goes along with the main theme of my work, which is to reinterpret old-time songs through a cinematic lens. The narrative in the video is open to interpretation much like the western films I love and drew inspiration from: There Will Be Blood, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, The Revenant, and The Power of the Dog, to name a few. This was our attempt to make something poetic, slow burning, and very movielike.”
Originally dating back to the broadside pamphlets of Scotland and England in the 1700s, “The Blackest Crow” is given an eerie, country-tinged update by Tod and his band. Told through exchanges between two lovers living apart, the song is a couple’s promise to always be true to one another.
Of the song’s origins, Tod explains,
“These pamphlets would have been given out or sold to workers like sheep herders, horse handlers, and milkmaids who would post the lyrics on the walls of dairies, stables, and barns to learn and pass time as they worked.”
With his debut studio LP, the wry and raspy tenor steps boldly forward as a prominent voice in old-time music. While the instrumentation honours the history of the genre, the expansive arrangements point to a new era of traditional sounds.
The follow-up to his 2021 self-titled three-track EP, on his debut full-length effort, Tod sings well-worn traditionals, researches their roots, and sets a precedent for a sound that is both rooted in the past and relevant to the present day.
A weathered explorer of traditional music, Tod’s previous work with old-time duo Godfrey & Tod earned praise from Exclaim, who declared it “ought to be required listening for Albertans, and comes highly recommended for the rest of us.” As an ethnomusicologist, Tod’s The Folk podcast series on the lesser-known histories of folk and old-time music in Canada was called “an unlikely hit” by the Calgary Herald.
It’s said that to know where we’re going, we must know where we’ve been. Mike Tod reminds us that the past, present, and future are inexorably linked in song.