Archer on target again
Iain Archer’s new album Magnetic North finds the singer recalling the good and bad of growing up in Northern Ireland.
John Walshe, 10 Oct 2006
Iain Archer’s fourth album, Magnetic North, sees the Bangor-born singer delivering his strongest set yet, as he turns his incredible songwriting talent to songs about his home of Northern Ireland. Even the album’s title refers to being drawn back to a particular place or time, returning home.
“I found in hindsight that the idea of home was recurring a lot in the subject matter on at least four or five songs,” notes the softly spoken singer. “There’s a constant running thread of Belfast, Bangor and the North Coast. It’s amazing when you put a bunch of songs together and then draw lines through them. You rarely expect that there are going to be any common threads, but it’s nice to see that your mind’s at work, even when you don’t know it.”
While most of the songs referencing his home are full of fond memories and stunning imagery (‘Collect Yourself’, ‘Frozen Northern Shores’), the current single ‘When It Kicks In’ is an angry, emotive look at the darker side of growing up in Northern Ireland, where sectarian violence was always just around the corner.
“That song erupted out of me,” he reveals. “In September 2005, Northern Ireland beat England in the footie, and I was so excited. I walked through London the next day, being really proud and happy. Two days later, the whole of Northern Ireland was shut down in some of the worst rioting we’d seen in years.
“Going from that sense of elation to being so crestfallen filled me with a sense of dismay and that song came out. It brought up this sense of my own experiences of the self-destruction that exists there. Things can get to a certain level but then there’s an element, not of people but in people, that will pull the rug out and destroy the things that have been built up and are so good for everyone there. But I think the chorus of the song is celebratory. Although the lyrics depict this really graphic image of violent Ulster, it’s much more about hope, the hope of people seeing the consequences of their actions.”
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