Ned Botwood directs a big-hearted love letter to the West Country, by way of the American West for Metronomy frontman Joseph Mount's wonderful duet with Katy J Pearson for Love Factory.

This song is an absolute peach, and the video highlights the special chemistry that is created by bringing fellow west country artist Pearson on board. Botwood channels the visuals from 1960s US TV variety shows, and the legendary performances by Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton and June Carter, blending British and American rural iconography, superimposing Katy and Joseph into sweeping Devon landscapes.

Shot with a distinctly American flavour by DP Jamie Harding, the video trades prairie grass for wheat stubble and wide highways for narrow country lanes. The landscapes were captured over a sunset-chasing road trip through the South Hams in Jamie’s van.

Ned, Jamie and editor Kevin Corry worked to recreate a variety of old-school televisual devices. Shooting country vistas to line up with studio performances, then using a combination of back projection, black negative space and lo-fi blending effects to merge them together.

Eagle-eyed viewers will also spot a handful of homages to American cult classics, including Paris Texas, My Own Private Idaho and The Night of the Hunter.

“What I love about this song is that it just sounds like it’s always been around, like an old standard on the radio," says Botwood. "It made me think of that golden age of country performances on TV in the late ’60s. Those variety hours like Kraft Music Hall and The Porter Wagoner Show.

"Those shows really threw everything at the wall. All those charmingly janky sets and camera effects. Dolly Parton playing her Grammer guitar on a plastic porch, or Loretta Lynn superimposed onto rural Kentucky, or truly weird images like three disembodied Peggy Lee heads trading lyrics in different corners of the screen.

“So much country music is about *home*. And if you absorb enough US culture, you can end up with this weird nostalgia for a rural heartland you’ve never actually been to. But it does make sense. When Dolly sings about her ‘Tennessee Mountain Home’, you understand that feeling instinctively, even if you’ve only been as close as the West Country. Katy, Joe and I are all connected to Devon. And sometimes when you’re down there, on the right day and in the right light, it really does look like the American prairie.”

“Metronomy and Katy are two of my big indie heroes. So I was very sweaty when the email arrived! But I had the nicest team. Shoutout to Jamie Harding, who took me and his Arriflex sunset-chasing in Devon for two days. And Kevin Corry, who killed it in the edit.”