Buy and now the trembling light in my Shop
Release date: 17 October 2007; re-mixed/re-mastered 16 July 2021
Format: CDR album in a Super Jewel Case. Cover, disc artwork and typography by Landschaft. 2021 re-master: digital download at Bandcamp.
Cascades and glissandos, slowed-down church organs, a shimmering harmonic tension holds the listener in it's thrall; an epic in two parts in a vast reverbarent space. Inspired by the pastoral verse by Samuel Palmer, "Shoreham: Twilight Time". The title, a metaphore for Palmer's own life-work - twighlight time: a fleeting moment of clarity before darkness closes in. Palmer's family destroyed much of his work immediately after his death evaporating a lifetime of achievements. But "Shoreham: Twilight Time" survives and I wish to celebrate it's preciousness in one of my most harmonically structured works, it's title taken from this poem that I quote in part: "And now the trembling light Glimmers behind the little hills and corn, Ling'ring as loth to part; yet part thou must And though than open day far pleasing more (Ere yet the fields and pearled cups of flowers Twinkle in the parting light); ."
The poem, in Palmer's signature homage to the mystery of the harvest moon and the dying embers of the day, for me captures the romanticised and stylised view of the English countryside captured by 19th century artists and poets.
The first piece, 34 minutes long is a shimmer of jewels, swallows swooping over still water in the dying moments of the day.
The second, 26 minutes long, a tone poem, capturing the resonance of Palmers words "Thee night shall hide, sweet visinary gleam That softly lookest though the rising dew".
And for me captures a fond memory, a perfect childhood snapshot, walking through a meadow one summer evening with my father near Southwell, Nottinghamshire by the river Greet in the mid 1970's, the smell of hay as fresh now as it was over 30 years ago.
The 2021 release comprises the original works, re-mixed and with an extra track from the 2007 session.