Search Results for:

FRIENDLY

Alison Cotton

Only Darkness Now - 2021 Reissue

    With gliding viola & choral forces, Only Darkness Now is a more alive, peopled landscape than its predecessor. Moods remain contemplative, concerned with vivid, historical netherworlds & torments – we see this in extended album centrepiece 'Behind the Spiderweb Gate' and in 'In Solitude I Will Fade Away'. However despite its title Only Darkness now has a brighter expanse:

    Cotton layers viola, chimes & Omnichord - an electrical ghost-like medieval drone, alongside percussion, harmonium, piano & voice. This is a confident record, lifting Shirt of Lace by medieval revivalist Dorothy Carter, from Celtic lament to cathedral like grandeur.

    Sounds like: Max Richter. Tony Conrad. The Unthanks. Laura Cannell.

    TRACK LISTING

    Behind The Spiderweb Gates
    In Solitude I Will Fade Away
    How My Heart Bled In Bleeding Heart Yard
    The Hill Was Hollow
    Shirt Of Lace

    Alison Cotton

    All Is Quiet At The Ancient Theatre - 2021 Reissue

      'All Is Quiet...' begins in cold droned echoes of Nico's 'Frozen Warnings' but Cotton laments vanishing English customs, performance & countryside. Viola, harmonium & recorders bring lost sounds – the deathly percussive march of 'A Tragedy In The Tithe Barn', ballad themes of departure in 'The Bells of St. Agnes'.

      Cotton's music searches a past of stillness & desolation but where Nico's is an icy tundra, Cotton's viola and choral layers hold earthy, distinctly English experimental resonances with early music modalities. It's mournful, yes, but with contemplative spaces of light & renewal.

      Sounds like: John Cale & Nico, Tony Conrad, Laura Cannell, Linda Perhacs

      TRACK LISTING

      All Is Quiet At The Ancient Theatre
      The Last Sense To Leave Us
      36 Dramatic Situations
      The Bells Of St Agnes
      A Tragedy In The Tithe Barn


      Just In

      122 NEW ITEMS

      Latest Pre-Sales

      182 NEW ITEMS

      E-newsletter —
      Sign up
      Back to top