ALISON COTTON

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.