With its glinting, bucolic air, offset by detours into shadowy introspection, and rolling, freeform architecture, the album pitches up closer to Nico at her most reflective (The Marble Index <\/em>might be a partial signpost, as might the transcendent tenor of Van Morrison\u2019s Astral Weeks<\/em>) than anything stereotypically \u2018folk\u2019 or Celtic in nature. The song suites unwind with an idiosyncratic, at times rhapsodic immediacy, as if being discovered for the first time in the process of recording, although, in fact, passages of spontaneity and improvisation are just elements of what is often meticulously through-composed music.
Notable among the episodic essays are a smattering of collaborations, notably the richly melodic, tremulous opening suite, part of whose lyrics began as poem, Falcon, written by RWM Hunt, Scottish painter and leader of the band Shimmy Rivers and and Canal. Hunt also contributed to the lyrics of the inexorably unwinding \u2018Hyperbolia\u2019<\/em>, a piece which perhaps most eloquently encapsulates the album\u2019s signature interplay between music and words. The strident \u2018Albion Awake\u2019<\/em>, meanwhile, has words penned in the late \u201970s by Chris Cutler, of Henry Cow and Art Bears fame. Although they never became a song back then, the resonance of the words remains timeless for \u00c1ine, as she explains. \u201cThe lyrics appealed to me for many reasons, the urgency in them is one thing and the complete disgust with the present circumstance and the need to create a blank slate: \u201c Albion Awake!\/Tumble you seeders\/ Owls begone!\/Beaks, tear the fabric of the night to sparks\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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<\/figure>\n\n\n\n‘Anything bright or startling?’ is No.3 in the new 2L Library Series – a highly collectable catalogue of hardback CD albums designed to be stored in your bookcase. <\/p>\n\n\n\n An accompanying bonus disc (now deleted), Safely Adrift<\/em>, (SL022x) was available only to Second Language subscribers with this release.<\/p>\n\n\n\n ‘SAFELY ADRIFT’ TRACKLISTING : <\/p>\n\n\n\n ( i ) A Truant Medley,<\/em> 2012 ( ii ) Underbuilding, <\/em>2012 ( iii ) A Calling<\/em>, 2011
For \u00c1ine, drawing on the past, and the influence of like minds, is all part of her creative process. \u201cI feel that uniqueness in art can be bound up with what has gone before. We\u2019re all DNA replicas of our ancestors, so digging into tradition doesn\u2019t burden me at all. In fact, it helps me feel rooted.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
An organ improvisation performance at the Franciscan church.
An abandoned friary, Limerick City, Ireland<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One morning in the dark of an empty car park basement.
The Rotherhithe Library, London<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Music for a prayer film<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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