“Cotton shows us how we can pull the curtain aside and step beyond time to confront ourselves in new forms. Worlds can be discerned behind the veil of reality, and Only Darkness Now opens the door.”
The first solo album from Alison Cotton, All Quiet at the Ancient Theatre, was a masterful set of pieces that evoked ruined temples, heat shimmer and smoke curling from smoldering herbs. In her work as half of The Left Outsides, Cotton uses her wide open vocals to create electro-folk songs that sound as though they’ve been around forever. Recording solo, she strips the music back to make the sounds contained in fields and stones audible and eloquent. Only Darkness Now, originally out on cassette, is now available as a full release. Her second LP contains mysteries that unwind at the pace of a season changing, a time lapse of a record. Only Darkness Now consists of one long track and four shorter pieces. ‘Behind the Spiderweb Gate’ (20.37) weaves viola over drone and wordless vocals that seem to come from a landscape suspended in time, moving and changing at its own pace.
Originally published by The Quietus.Read the full review on The Quietus
