Following two acclaimed experimental instrumental records in Feral Hymns
(2021) and Acts of Light (2023), Hilary Woods returns on her new LP Night
CRIÚ, to song form and most notably, to her voice. Relearning how to use
it, and crafting songs centred around it, Night CRIÚ's intimate ecosystem of
seven songs uses vocal harmony and the annunciation of lyrics as ways to
re-enter the body, to speak to and make the unconscious conscious.
A ceremony of light and shade, Night CRIÚ is a record that riles against blud-
geoning monoculture in it's reclaiming and mourning a lost innocence all at
once. Woods' sonic palette is both dynamic and vulnerable, in it's reaching
to integrate lost and splintered parts of the whole. Unmoored sonic threads
recall the cracks, fringes, forgotten agency and layered dormant personas that
surface at night, waiting to be retrieved and integrated come daylight.
Inspired and energised by many things including the revival of indigenous
language, a personal history of attending parades and processions, early Irish
music, the joy in Northern Soul dancing, aspects of Czech and early Italian
cinema, the immediacy of sound, and the rising up of a present moment
collective in their vocalising and standing up for what it means to be human
in the face of tyranny and oppression, Night CRIÚ was recorded between the
west coast of Ireland, Dublin, London and in part Latvia between 2023 and
January 2025. Canticles for voice, brass, strings, electronics, field recordings,
texture, synths and piano, these songs were chosen from many early home re-
cordings that Woods held up as mirrors of juxtaposition to each other. Writ-
ten and produced by Hilary Woods, Night CRIÚ is mixed by Dean Hurley
with additional production by Dean Hurley and Oliver Turvey, mastered
by Brian Lucey, and featuring work by Hannah Fallon, Hangleton Brass
Band, Gabriel Ferrandini and Ajo Gonsenica.
"Each record is a life buoy, a snapshot, a marker in the sand, a date that re-
quires me to meet it" according to Woods, "A raft, at once cathartic, buoyant
and playful, making records is a way of being".
Track List
- Voce
- Faults
- Endgames
- Brightly
- Taper
- Offerings
- Shelter
