Until recently, I wasn’t familiar with Hilary Woods’s music. The moment I heard Night CRIÚ, it carried the same magical fascination as some of my favourite borderline folk albums. It has the mysterious, dark, yet emotive core of something both ancient and current, somewhere between Linda Perhacs’s Parallelograms and Grouper’s Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill.
Presented as a return to voice and songwriter for the artist, coming on the heels of two previous albums of somber, monolithic cello drones. While layered, spectral voice snippets inhabit 2021’s Feral Hymns, 2023’s Acts of Light is almost sepulchral in its cavernous soundscape.
Night CRIÚ harnesses the intimate immediacy of confessional songwriting into brief, striking tracks that explore longing, desire, and devotion as tools for recalibration and resistance. The first seconds of “Voce” open with a majestic cello accord, almost a call back to her instrumental album. As the track progresses, it layers ethereal, breathy Cocteau Twins-esque over a hypnotic drum beat while the repeating verses sound like an incantation. Other instruments chime in, and the simple melody gradually blossoms into a collective endeavour taken over by a children’s choir, like reciting a forgotten spell. “Faults” continues on this expansive trajectory, as Woods’s vocals are accompanied by a brass band. Perhaps the most devotional piece on the album, its repetition a mysterious, personal prayer. “Endgames” has a more traditional song structure, with distinct lyrics filled with the visceral pain of a failed romance, in an interplay of ominous wildlife metaphors and ecstatic vocal glimpses. “Brightly” and “Taper” are perhaps the most straightforward folk tracks on the album, first a stripped-down foggy ballad featuring minimal guitar and string accompaniment that amplify its melancholic ambiance, the latter with a more upbeat, simple melody, almost a sea-shanty, featuring the children’s choir again.
The final track, “Shelter”, brings back the soaring string and piano accompaniment woven with discreet drones to create a beguiling lullaby, a protection talisman for a crumbling world.
There’s something almost primal in Woods’s mesh of layering and repetition, giving out the impression that these songs and choruses could be a part of something older than her, tapping into an ancestral, collective memory where grief and joy collide.
