Night CRIÚ

After two acclaimed experimental instrumental albums, "Feral Hymns" (2021) and "Acts of Light" (2023), Hilary Woods returns to song form and, above all, to her voice on her new LP "Night CRIU".She re-learns how to use her voice and composes songs that revolve around it. The intimate seven-song ecosystem of Night CRIU uses vocal harmonies and the enunciation of lyrics as a means of re-entering the body, speaking to the unconscious and making it conscious."Night CRIU" is a ceremony of light and shadow, an album that rebels against oppressive monoculture by simultaneously reclaiming and mourning lost innocence. Woods' sonic palette is both dynamic and vulnerable in its effort to integrate lost and fragmented parts of the whole. Detached threads of sound recall the cracks, edges, forgotten agency and multi-layered, dormant personalities that come to the surface at night, waiting to be rediscovered and integrated in the light of day. Inspired and fueled by many things, including the revival of indigenous languages, personal experiences of parades and processions, early Irish music, the joy of Northern Soul dancing, aspects of Czech and early Italian cinema, the immediacy of sound and the rebellion of a contemporary collectivity speaking out and advocating for humanity in the face of tyranny and oppression. Night CRIU was recorded between 2023 and January 2025 on the west coast of Ireland, in Dublin, London and partly in Latvia. These songs for vocals, brass, strings, electronics, field recordings, textures, synthesizer and piano were selected from many early home recordings, which Woods juxtaposed as mirror images. Night CRIU was written and produced by Hilary Woods, mixed by Dean Hurley, with additional production by Dean Hurley and Oliver Turvey, mastered by Brian Lucey and with contributions from Hannah Fallon, Hangleton Brass Band, Gabriel Ferrandini and Ajo Gonsenica. "Each record is a life buoy, a snapshot, a marker in the sand, a deadline I have to meet," says Woods. "A raft that is cathartic, buoyant and playful all at the same time - making records is a way of being."