Wednesday 27 October 2021, 7.30pm
"Cotton has tapped into a rich vein of music that seems urgent and essential. Only Darkness Now pays the same microcosmic attention to place that many have found themselves exploring, often involuntarily, during lockdown. Cotton shows us how we can pull the curtain aside and step beyond time to confront ourselves in new forms." – The Quietus
ALISON COTTON is a viola player based in London working in composition and improvisation. Her debut album ’All Is Quiet at the Ancient Theatre’ was released in 2018 firstly on cassette on Bloxham Tapes, followed by a vinyl release on Cardinal Fuzz (UK) and Feeding Tube (USA). In July 2019 her longform piece, ‘Behind the Spiderweb Gates’ was released on the Australian label, Longform Editions. As well as the viola, she uses an array of other instruments (her voice, harmonium, percussion, recorder, omnichord, shruti box and piano) to create long, haunting folk drones. Cotton’s new album ‘The Portrait You Painted of Me’, is a 6-track record – her first for Rocket Recordings. ‘Mumurations Over the Moor’ is a wordless piece of layered vocals, drifting like fog towards a sunset over the green undulations of North East England. ‘The Last Wooden Ship’ evokes the shipyards of Sunderland, laced with piano and percussion events, while her voice calls out like a siren urging listeners to a rocky demise.
https://alisoncotton-uk.bandcamp.com
anrimeal is the recording project of Ana Rita de Melo Alves; singer, songwriter, producer, poet, conjuror, clodhopper and cherub. Hailing from Porto, Ana creates and manipulates digital folk song from her current base in south London, drawing on the post-minimalist principles of texture, limitation and repetition. Lately, she can be found composing around the sound of creaking doors, percolating coffee and whispering toothbrushes, seeking and finding the magic in the domestic and humanity in the inanimate. Ana’s debut album Could Divine was released in November 2020, to widespread perked ears from the likes of BBC 6music, BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction, The Wire, Electronic Sound and Mojo, and can be found in limited yellow vinyl form on her Bandcamp. Her latest project (Could Divine, Remembered) is a reimagined, deconstructed companion piece to Could Divine, featuring remixes and reflections spun together with previously unreleased material.
