Posts Tagged ‘ethereal’

Watch: ‘Midnight Pad’ and ‘Sun Halos’ by Paris Music Corp.

Posted: 14 November 2025 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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As we approach winter and the solstice draws closer, Texas-based electronic composer Paris Music Corp. a.k.a. John Andrew Paris presents two new tracks – ‘Midnight Pad’ and ‘Sun Halos’ – that juxtapose light with dark, similar to how night turns to day and to night once again.

Nature and cycles are themes explored on his new Ecotone album as he takes us on an electronic odyssey that is both deeply personal and geographically-inspired. This record is rooted in the artist’s relocation to his childhood home in Brownsville, South Texas, just miles from the border and the coast. Paris wrote, recorded, mixed and mastered this at Tarantula Studios over the past two years.

“’Midnight Pad’ was another late-night writing excursion using some mind expansion influence. Another piece that started with my phone and ended up with hardware synths and drum machines in the studio one it was built. And ‘Sun Halos’? Creating a song just happens sometimes. Brian Eno always talked about his main theory in that “music just happens”. It’s really like a magic trick sometimes when what you turn out is an earworm of a piece that is memorable,” says John Andrew Paris.

Originally from Austin, John Andrew Paris has spent decades creating music and collaborating with artists, including Arthur Brown (The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, perhaps best known for his hit single ‘Fire’), as well as DJ Rev Kathy Russell, DJ Lucas Ray, Catastrophe Ballet, Le Reve, Life’s Eyes, Beast of Eden, OBOYO and Don Wigwam.

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“The Ecotone album made sense to me because you have a transitional zone, where two different ecological communities or ecosystems meet and intermingle, often resulting in high biodiversity. I feel a lot closer to nature.. Some of my song titles reflect where I am. I actually lived in this area as a child and have come back to my roots,” says John Andrew Paris.

“A lot of these pieces were started on a phone app called Ableton Note. With this application you are able to scratch-pad a lot of cool ideas and then import them into you music workstation and finish them out. When I first moved to my new place I didn’t have a spacious studio setup and I wrote a lot just sitting up all hours of the night writing ideas on Ableton Note.”

Known for his cinematic and ethereal music, on this album, Paris Music Corp.’s music also shows its dark underbelly and futuristic imagination. Often with elements of 80’s darkwave and ambient soundscapes, his trademark sound includes heavily processed guitar and bass instruments locked into layered loops and further manipulated using software. Also employing live hand percussion, these dense soundscapes take the listener on a sonic journey to otherworldly places.

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Listen: ‘Phantasmagoria’ by Ani Glass

Posted: 28 June 2025 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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Ani Glass announces the release of ‘Phantasmagoria’ on the 4th of July, the lush first single and title track from her forthcoming second album.

In February 2020, just before the release of her debut album Mirores, Ani Glass (Cardiff-based artist Ani Saunders) was diagnosed with a rare benign brain tumour. The diagnosis marked the beginning of a personal journey that shaped her second album, Phantasmagoria (released on the 26th of September), a lush, introspective concept album that delves deeply into her experience of navigating life with this diagnosis. With lyrics in Cymraeg (Welsh), Kernewek (Cornish), and English, as well as some BSL woven into her live performances,  Phantasmagoria brings together all languages and mediums at Ani’s disposal to express a poignant time in her life.

Opening single ‘Phantasmagoria’ weaves themes of water and sleep into a beguiling sonic landscape layered with mystical ethereal vocals invested with a restless need for stillness and comfort. Lush instrumentation is underpinned by synth pulses played by co-producer Iwan Morgan and swirling flutes played by Laura J Martin. “I’m the prophet of sleep and silence/Phantasmagoria/We’ll rest until summer” Glass sings touchingly, in the arms of chiming classical textures, there are echoes of early Goldfrapp or the enveloping vocal swoops of Enya. Yet, it’s a moment of warm, transcendent beauty and comforting self-realisation. Now we rest, the storm will pass.

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Crafting a elegantlly drawn sonic world underpinned by electronica, samples and synth pulses yet informed by the spirit of Arthur Russell who inspired her to learn the cello, Glass crafts her most personal and inspirational work yet, she stretches her sonic tapestry with live instrumentation and innovative vocal performances, that push into the realms of the avant-garde and forward-looking pop, Phantasmagoria fascinates and invigorates at every turn, revealing intricate and innovative details with every listen.

The single Phantasmagoria is out on the 4th of July and her new album is released on the 26th of September.

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Mercury’s Antennae – Among the Black Trees

Posted: 19 March 2025 in Albums, Reviews
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20th March 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

And finally, following the single release of ‘The Reflecting Skin’, Mercury’s Antennae deliver their first album in seven years, in the form of Among the Black Trees, the release date set to mark the Spring Equinox. It’s a nice detail which feels pertinent. This last winter has felt particularly grim: not necessary especially cold or even seasonal by historical or conventional standards – but dark, unpleasant, and relentlessly grim – and that’s without even contemplating global events. The Spring Equinox is a specific point of celebration, even elation, perhaps, at which the long, dark nights begin to recede, buds and shoots begin to appear, leaves unfurl, and the first flowers bring colour. The renewal, rebirth, and even a bubbling sense of optimism is palpable, and reminds us that whatever atrocities mankind commit upon the planet and one another, nature has a resilience which transcends all of it.

They describe the album’s nine tracks as ‘existential tales [which] inhabit a ghostly realm of reflection, rebirth and reconciliation, overlaying dense bass, swirling ghostly guitars, and atmospheric electronics, all melding with lustrous and soaring vocal melodies’.

It begins with the glacial synth-led six-minute ‘A Sunless Winter Night’, and it conveys that through the medium of sound as the layers of vocals sweep and soar. It’s vaguely reminiscent of Ultraviolet-era All About Eve, and its slow beats are absorbing and compelling as they clip through the swirling sonic backdrop.

It’s a heavily chorused, reverbed, and otherwise processed guitar which chimes and flutters its way through ‘The Moon Viewing Garden’, a song which is truly beautiful, but also aches with a beautiful sadness, while the six-and-a-half-minute ‘Whispered Among Flowers’ presses the downtempo, atmospheric vibe, with soft washes of chiming, reverb-hazed guitar and wispy synths shaping and shading everything delicately – although it’s the thudding classic goth bass groove that really pins everything together.

As much as the early goth sound emerged from a range of sources, spanning Siouxsie and the Banshees to Bauhaus, and not forgetting The Cure, it’s fair to say that Craig Adam’s bass style and Wayne Hussey’s twelve-string picking on The Sisters of Mercy’s debut album set a definitive template. Among the Black Trees is by no means derivative, but the lineage is evident.

This brings us to the lead single, ‘The Reflecting Skin’: it’s certainly a high mark of the album, but also perfectly representative of its boldly atmospheric intent, and the way it blends the melancholy and the uplifting, perfectly articulating the complexities of emotional and mood-driven highs and lows and the swings that come with what one may describe as ‘seasonal variations’.

While the instrumental ‘PERMIAN’ provides a solid-sounding interlude, ‘As I Lay Hidden (Deer Island)’ offers something quite different, a swashing, dark, Cocteau-Twins influenced slice of dream-pop which also brings with it a folksy twist, and the result is – I’ll say it – epic. And that’s perhaps the ultimate summary of Among the Black Trees as a whole.

As much as many of the songs feel introspective, their expansive nature feel very much outward-looking, as if scanning the horizon for hope, for optimism. It’s something we need to cling to. It can’t all be bad, after all.

To suggest that Among the Black Trees offers light at the end of the tunnel would be misleading. There is no end to the tunnel right now. But Among the Black Trees is a magnificent work, one which is abrim with subtle emotional depth and sound which is truly immense – yes, epic – in scope. It’s an ambitious and expansive album, which offers so much – and delivers on all of it. For the large part, it’s a work that’s understated, but it is, in its own way, quite spectacular.

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Spineless – Dysphonia

Posted: 3 December 2024 in Albums, Reviews
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Submersion Records – 1st November 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

Once again, I’m playing catch-up. There isn’t only new music released faster than I can even read my emails, but great new music at that. It’s important to stress this. There’s so much grumbling about how there’s nothing new or interesting being released anymore, and the media is bursting with articles on how bands are dying a death because the charts are solid with solo artists and it’s impossible to finance a tour as a band in the current climate, and that’s if there are any venues given that grassroots venues are closing at such an alarming rate, and it’s true, bands are simply not a feature of the commercial charts anymore, the music industry is messed up, streaming platforms like Spotify exist to deliver the precise opposite of trickle-down economics by funnelling revenue from streams for probably 90 per cent of acts up to the major league acts, and venues are in crisis. But anyone who visits these pages with any kind of frequency will be aware that there is an immense wealth of new music being released every single week – it’s just not easy to know where to find it.

When I embarked on my journey from the Top 40 to the underground, in the late 80s and early 90s, there was Melody Maker, Sounds, The NME (to an extent), and John Peel. Annie Nightingale’s request show would air all kinds of non-mainstream stuff directly after the top 40 singles chart on Radio 1 in the late 80s. Hell, even the overenthusiastic snivelling sycophant Zane Lowe would play some interesting stuff. Now, 6Music is pretty much it, and it is not the same. This is the scenic route to why I’m a month behind on covering new releases.

Dysphonia by Spineless is… powerful.

‘Justice’ arrives on a thick, monotonous bass blast and shuddering guitars, at first calling to mind Swans but then swerving into a space that’s both more metal and more atmospheric.

Cited influences which range from Godflesh to Chelsea Wolfe are clearly apparent, as powerful vocals, often ethereal, but at times demonic, top punishing industrial trudges dominated by sparse riffs, just a couple of chords hammered with skull-crushing brutality. ‘Disease’ is exemplary, bringing together a commanding vocal which positively soars, and a punishing, relentless riff adorned with squalls of feedback, with everything pinned together with a snare drum that simply takes the top off your head.

Single cut ‘Me’, showcased here not so long ago, is altogether more atmospheric, emotive, moving, but there are surging currents of noise running throughout, and the piano-based ‘You’ offers a counterpart piece which sees Spineless venture toward the realms of anthemic balladry. It’s quite a departure from the majority of the album, and seems to be mastered differently, too, which makes it a standout for a range of reasons. ‘To the Core’ plunges back to guitar-driven darkness, epic post-metal par excellence.

In another time, despite its weight, its, at times, brutal heft, the popper moments of Dysphonia would have likely won it mainstream airplay, and would have seen Spineless pitched alongside the likes of Evanescence and Linkin Park – not that they’re nu-metal or gothic metal, but because the songwriting is of a standard, and because they have TUNES as well as bold riffs. ‘Where Am I’ brings some stuttering beats and brooding piano, and there’s so much depth to absorb with Dysphonia. ‘Your Drama’ is soulful and industrial, detailed and delicate… and then it ends heavy. And I mean heavy.

‘NOZZ’ is nothing short of a sonic explosion, and it not remotely commercial, and all the better for it. It’s an absolute beast, a raging tempest of overload. Time was you’d buy an album based on the singles, only to find the singles completely unrepresentative. It’s true that the singles from Dysphonia showcase the more accessible end of things, but as a whole, it’s a magnificent set of songs, which really do cross boundaries and explore different spaces.

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Watch: ‘Hide’ by Magic Wands

Posted: 27 July 2024 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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Magic Wands is a dream pop duo originally formed in Nashville by guitarists / vocalists Chris and Dexy Valentine. Now based in Los Angeles, the group is known for its shimmering and dreamy sound, which incorporates elements of shoegaze, post-punk and goth.

Characterised by heavily-textured guitars, synth drones and ethereal vocals, these elements in combination produce music with an otherworldly atmosphere that has been widely praised for its euphoric quality, especially evident in live performances.

Dedicated to creating music that is both imaginative and emotionally engaging, Magic Wands have issued five studio albums to date, the most recent of which is Switch (2023). Its songs were also remixed by guest artists and released as Switched later in the year.

‘Hide’ is a brand new song. Check it here:

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GUHTS – Regeneration

Posted: 17 January 2024 in Albums, Reviews
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New Heavy Sounds – 26th January 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

It begins with a yawning, wailing drone, before thunderous bass, drums, and a rolling piano crash in tempestuously. But if you think this is just another heavy doom-leaning record with a dash of theatre, the arrival of Amber Gardner’s vocals changes everything. She brings an antagonistic, nihilistic punk vibe at first, but then, as the song transitions into a grand, sweeping expanse, reveals a softer side. And so it is that ‘White Noise’, the album’s eight-and-a-half-minute opener is a real shape-shifter, sliding back and forth between crushing weight and spellbinding atmosphere. But when it goes heavy, it’s utterly pulverising, and the sustained crescendo which occupies the last three minutes is gut-wrenching, annihilative, a rare exhibit of raw, chest-tightening emotional heft combining with the most punishingly brutal instrumentation, which leaves the listener feeling wracked, drained, ruined.

It may sound strange, but it’s often more difficult to write about albums which really hit you, which have the most impact. To scrabble for an analogy, it’s like being kicked in the chest and left lying breathless on the ground then being asked to describe the experience while still barely able to draw oxygen. It’s like… like… It leaves you stunned, numb, dazed, and at a loss. Regeneration is one such album. It’s all well and good clutching and comparisons and scratching for similes, but no words can really come close to articulating the spectrum of sensations which engulf your very being when faced with something so intense, so close to overwhelming. Yes, it’s dancing about architecture. What you want to do, more than anything, is to forcibly sit people down and say “listen to this! No, really, listen! Feel that!”

New York-based GUHTS (pronounced ‘guts’) declare themselves to be an ‘avant-garde post-metal project, delivering larger than life sounds through, deeply emotional music’. It’s the emotional aspect that hits harder than the punishing power chords, but it’s the combination of the two which really is the killer here.

The album’s seven tracks are incredibly ambitious in scope and scale, and in terms of balancing emotional depth and sheer brutal force. For the most part, the compositions extend beyond the five-minute mark, but are confined to under eight, and are effectively doom/goth epyllia – expansive, dense, cinematic. The prominence of piano – particularly notable on the slower, intensely wrought and dynamically varied ‘The Mirror’. One of those songs which sustains a surging sensation from the very beginning, it’s truly worthy of the ‘epic’ descriptor.

‘Till Death’ has hints of Cranes about it in Amber’s ethereal vocal delivery, but it’s paired with megalithic guitars of absolutely crushing weight, while the shortest song on the album, ‘Handless Maiden’ is monstrous in its unyielding heaviness. Gardner brings another surprise with her rabid howl, which is utterly petrifying.

There isn’t a weak track here, nor a single second that doesn’t feel utterly vital and doesn’t crackle with intensity, and Regeneration is an immense and powerful album. ‘Generate’ rolls into graceful shoegaze territory, with rolling drums and chiming guitars which wash and ripple mesmerically, gradually building to a sonic tsunami.

There’s something inevitable and completely perfect about the way it all leads the way to the ten-minute ‘The Wounded Healer’, which comes as a truly monumental finale. And what a finale! It begins delicately, ringing xylophone or glockenspiel chiming out mellow tones, before a grinding low-end grinds in and from here, the build is slow and inexorable. Gardner traverses the sonic space, shifting mood and tone in a flicker. The guitar twists and spins, tense and serpentine against the ever-swelling wall of booming bass and by only halfway through, you’re drowning, the air pressed form your lungs… and then… then… Christ. Gardner is possessed, and the guitars pulverise and you feel your skull beginning to compress. Finally, around the seven-minute mark, there is levity. Clawing for aa comparison, I arrive at Amenra, although it’s less than half the story of a song, and an album, which is utterly peerless and completely beyond spheres of comparison.

Regeneration is special, hard-hitting, unique. Really. Listen! Feel that!

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Listen: ‘Dissent, Shame’ by The Body & Dis Fig

Posted: 17 January 2024 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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Ahead of the release of their debut collaborative album Orchards of a Futile Heaven, out February 23rd, The Body & Dis Fig share potent, affecting new single ‘Dissent, Shame.’

The track’s devastating force lies beyond pure noise or abrasive textures, evoking weighty emotions with a minimalist drone dirge that gradually builds into an enchanting choral passage. Suffused with a raw vulnerability and a longing for catharsis, Dis Fig’s voice searches for escape in the midst of oppressive atmospheres as if determined to find relief from guilt. She elaborates on the track: “It’s about the act of abandonment, and the guilt and shame that comes with it. Running away from something, seemingly towards your own safety, but as your conscience picks you apart the entire way.”

Orchards of a Futile Heaven affirms The Body & Dis Fig as skilled sound sculptors who have an exceptional ability to make deeply affecting music, bracing as it is touching, harrowing as it is awe-inspiring. While sampling has long been essential to each, The Body & Dis Fig deftly meld their differing approaches to sampling and creating extreme sounds until the boundaries are entirely blurred. The group transmute weighty emotions into bristling sonic atmospheres, buoyed by Dis Fig’s ethereal vocals. She elaborates: “I love the balance. You could never connect to just a machine as well as you could a human. Which is why the combination is so potent for me. I don’t want to hide. I think nothing connects you more empathetically than another human’s voice.”

The Body & Dis Fig plan to tour throughout the US, UK, and Europe in 2024. Dates and details incoming soon.

Listen to ‘Dissent, Shame’ here:

The Body & Dis Fig are a natural pair. Each has pioneered instantly recognisable worlds of sound all their own that defy any traditional categorisations or boundaries. The Body, Lee Buford and Chip King, continually challenge any conventional conception of metal, collaborating with myriad artists and from the folk-leanings of their work with BIG|BRAVE to their groundbreaking work with the Assembly of Light Choir to the intensity of their collaborations with OAA or Thou.

Dis Fig, aka Felicia Chen, pushes electronic music into dark extremes, from warped DJ sets to avant production, from being a member of Tianzhuo Chen’s performance-art series TRANCE to being the vocalist with The Bug. The Body and Dis Fig find kinship in reimagining what it means to make “heavy music”. Their debut Orchards of a Futile Heaven is the perfect synthesis of two forces, twisting melodicism and intoxicating rhythms, layering a dense miasma of distortion with intense beats and a soaring voice clawing its way towards absolution.

The two found kinship in their desire to find new avenues to make heavy music that looked beyond tropes of metal and electronic music by merging the two. “I always wanted the heavier stuff but I also didn’t really like heavier guitar music,” says Buford. “None of it really felt quite heavy enough to me. A human can’t be as heavy as a machine.”

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Listen: ‘The Eye of Destiny’ by †The Lord† and Marthe

Posted: 2 December 2023 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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Following on from Marthe’s incendiary debut Southern Lord full-length, Further In Evil, released this October, she now teams up with †The Lord† (Greg Anderson) to release two brand new collaborative tracks, ‘The Eye Of Destiny’ and ‘Wisps of the Black Serpent’.

Marzia comments on this collaboration:

“Collaborating with The Lord was an exciting challenge, and something new, and stimulating to me. I don’t usually deal with such soundscapes and when Greg asked me to add vocals and drums to ‘The Eye of Destiny’, I accepted. The track was intended by Greg to be a tribute to Quorthon (Bathory), an artist who has been a huge influence on my moods. I had started to add in battle-drum beats, but soon faced the hard task of using words to describe what (to me) is the most talented artist of all time. How to contribute in words what I can’t even process in emotions?”

She continues, “There’s the person behind it, and along with the talent there’s the reality of the loss, since he’s not here anymore to witness the legacy of his sound. What’s left of his feelings on his blog, his emotions, his development as an artist and as a person and that spark in his eyes. The eyes are the mirror of the soul, we say. And I was reading some notes he left on a letter and it went something like "may the eye of destiny be wild with you and show you the right way through life". "The Eye of destiny" was an evocative image to me, to picture in my mind the aura of his memory, as a human being and a musical genius. As words are dominant in a tribute, it was impossible, in the most humble way, to find words for him. So, I took his own words: checked all the lyrics and made a caviardage of words that in the end composed a tribute in what I considered the most honourable way possible. I love the final result, it’s my small tribute to a musical giant.”

Listen to ‘The Eye of Destiny’ here:

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Watch: ‘Som skyer’ by SPURV

Posted: 1 August 2023 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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Scandinavian post-rock giants SPURV have announced the release of new track ‘Som skyer’ via Germany’s Pelagic Records. The penultimate single from Brefjære, the band’s fourth full-length release due September 22nd; ‘Som skyer’ sees the band layer orchestral grandeur over a shimmering, glacial guitar refrain as thunderous drums push the five and half minute piece to ever greater heights.

Having recently moved to Tromsø, a remote northern province far above the Arctic Circle, principal songwriter Gustav Jørgen Pedersen took inspiration from the forces of nature he found himself surrounded by. Despite the overwhelming presence of the mountains and the unrelenting Arctic winds, Pedersen was struck by the resilience and sheer determination of life, from the birch trees outside his window to a single butterfly battling the breeze.

This delicate balance is perfectly captured in the sheer euphoria of ‘Som skyer’ and its accompanying video. SPURV take us soaring through the sky as the sun peers over the jagged Norwegian fjørds; finding the joy of life in even the most desolate places.

Brefjære sees the band take their latent exploration of neo-classical composition even further. Throughout ‘Som skyer’, guitarist Herman Otterlei’s celestial, spiralling motif is complemented by glockenspiels, a brass section and a 14-voice choir; adding further depth to the incredible dynamic sensitivity that SPURV have carved out over their decade at the forefront of international post-rock.

Gustav Jørden Petersen on ‘Som Skyer’:

“’Som skyer’ is Spurv at its perhaps most ethereal. The song is about the wind that flies over the earth, rustles in the treetops, and plunges down over the mountain. It represents time and fleeting memories, words and ideas that are shared across generations. The song contains old melodies combined with new arrangements, and was finally realized as part of Brefjære after many years.”

Watch the immersive video here:

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Celestial North – Otherworld

Posted: 18 June 2023 in Albums
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7th July 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

A year after unveiling ‘The Nature of Light’ with the promise of a debut album in September 2022, Celestial North’s Otherworld is finally with us. With the title track and ‘Yarrow’ having also built a level of anticipation, it’s left like an album that’s been a long time coming.

Some things simply cannot be rushed, and Otherworld is appropriately-titled, as Celestial North creates songs which sound as if transported from another world, and another time. A she says of the album’s evolution, “I imagined that I was time-traveling through different and exciting worlds. Wandering through the ancient, sacred stone circles at Machrie Moor and then jumping straight into an underground rave in the forest.” And on Otherworld, she transports the listener on these journeys alongside her.

The album opens with the sweeping dreampop of ‘Are You Free’, which begins as a spoken word piece with misty synths, her Scottish accent strong and honest, before piano ripples in and she slides with grace and elegance into her lilting singing voice. It’s a question phrased as a statement, and I suppose it serves to remind us that whatever society’s constraints, we can, to an extent, choose our freedoms.

And yet, for all this ethereality and otherness, Otherworld has a deep-seated earthiness or sense of nature flowing through it. I don’t mean it feels like Celestial North is connected to nature: she is nature, and channels it through her ever molecule.

Raised in Scotland and now residing in Cumbria, Celestial North channels her natural surroundings and their rich, ancient history and heritage. Many artists have promotional photos shot by standing stones and in stone circles, but she describes her music as ‘pagan euphoria’, and listening to Otherworld, you feel that this isn’t image or posturing: these are the spaces where she belongs, and draws the energy from these places. Some – many – will likely dismiss the notion, but many of these locations do possess a unique and indescribable power that goes beyond mere awe. Castlerigg, near Keswick, is one which surprises me every time I visit; yet I have also felt something, like a crackle of electricity, on stumbling upon a minor circle, only half-intact, while in Scotland; the landscape was barren, and gorse had grown beside it, but the full circle was marked by a ring of nettles and a chill ran over me. These are the sensations which emanate from Otherworld.

Her piano-led rendition of REM’s ‘Nightswimming’ is a magnificently-realised slice of quintessentially dreamy indie. Ordinarily, I’d question placing a cover as the third track on an album, but context counts: this featured on a lauded and band-backed charity compilation released by God is in the TV – but moreover, it just works. ‘Olympic Skies’ is breezy, wistful, easy, airy, with a lilting melody that brings folk and dreamy indie into perfect alignment.

The aforementioned title track packs pitter-batter rhythms and sweeping synths and soaring backing vocals which wrap themselves around a fragile, yet confident-sounding lead vocal as it floats on air, before the more overtly 80s electro-sounding ‘Restless Spirit’, another paean to freedom, this time driven by a thumping dance beat. Her voice is unique and complex: it’s quiet, reserved, breathy, with hints of Suzanne Vega and The Corrs, but also Cranes’ Allison Shaw but also Maggie Riley on ‘Moonlight Shadow’. It makes for compelling listening, especially on songs like ‘The Stitch’, which convey powerful, wild-outdoors Celtic pagan vibes – but again, in an understated fashion. ‘Yarrow’ plays the album out with a rolling piano-based post-rock piece that’s sedate and soothing. Otherworld avoids the bombastic clichés which tend to mar much so-called pagan folk or electronic folk: many acts overdo the gothic leanings, and go for bold (melo)drama, which feels contrived and emotionally empty, simply because it’s trying too hard.

For Celestial North, it all comes naturally, and the dancier elements feel comfortable because one doesn’t get a sense of the artist trying to be simultaneously ‘hip’ and ‘deep’; this is simply her music, her style. Otherworld demonstrates that ‘powerful’ doesn’t have to be heavy or hard, and that ‘light’ doesn’t have to mean lightweight or flimsy. It’s accessible, but complex, deep but not dark or difficult. Sit back and let it carry you.

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