Charlotte Church is back, exploring a new emo-influenced musical direction that seems wholly appropriate considering her traumatic phone-hacking experiences – and that certainly gives more scope to her vocal talents. But it still comes as a surprise to see her frolicking in the woods at the behest of those arch-alternative lo-fi agent provocateurs (and fellow Cardiff residents) Casey Raymond & Ewan Jones Morris.

Casey & Ewan’s video for Charlotte’s How Not To Be Surprised When You’re A Ghost – in which Charlotte plays mum to a brood of tiny ghouls and other little monsters – bears comparison with their wonderful work for John Grant, Cate Le Bon and others, with woodland-shot scenes mixing with more dreamlike sequences and portraits of inventively-monsterized children…

John Grant turned out to be the catalyst for this project, as Ewan explains. “We were hanging out with John after a show he did in Cardiff, and lo and behold Charlotte wandered in. It turned out she’s a big fan (of John) and had met him at SXSW or something like that. She was working on some new music at the time, so we offered our services and some significant time later she got in touch to see if we would like to do a video.

“She was a joy to work with, and the whole process was suspiciously easy going, from initial ideas to the final edit – although we had a challenging time persuading kids to stay in ghost costumes.”

Charlotte Church
How Not To Be Surprised When You’re A Ghost (Alligator Wine Records)
Director: Casey & Ewan
Hair Styling: Zoe Charlotte Williams
Costume Assistant: Leila Headon
Prosthetics: Torben Schacht
Runners: Michael Fennessy and Alex Skinner
Ghosts: Ziven, Seren, Henri, Lillian, Carys, Ruby, Beatrix, Alba, Gwynnie, Rhianon, Arthur, Connie, Nuno, Leo, Donny, Sam, Rhosyn