Peek behind the scenes of Scouse psyche-rockers The Coral’s wonderfully warped new video

If you’re able to cast your mind back to the heady days of 2002, you’ll likely remember a semi-psychedelic bolt out of the north-west blue, in the form of The Coral’s eponymous debut album. Its arrival felt, if memory serves correctly, as refreshing as a jug of acid-laced iced-tea in a musical moment dominated by thrice-reheated garage rock. Lysergic, melodious, and wonky, it marked a bunch of Syd Barrett loving lads from the Wirral out as ones to watch.

By June 2005 they’d become household names, thanks to the chirpy, milkman-friendly “In the Morning,” a jaunty little pop record you’re still likely to hear on commercial radio stations to this very day.

The Coral are, as we speak, sitting pretty at number one in the UK independent album charts. Their latest LP, Move Through The Dawn flits between hippy dippy folk numbers and the kind of pop classicism that wouldn’t sound out of place on Radio 2’s Sounds of the Sixties. In a good way.

Today they release new single Reaching Out for a Friend, which is accompanied by a warped and wonderful video directed by The Coral’s Ian Skelly and photographer and videographer Dom Foster. The result is a hyper-colour explosion that comes on like a Pete Fowler fever-dream.

The Coral lads have been kind enough to give us a look at a bunch of the original sketches and ideas that made the video that fun little thing it is. Feast your eyes on the finished product and then go back and check their workings out.

Should you be so inclined, the Reaching Out for a Friend single is out today on Ignition Records.