Description

Alison Cotton, when not playing alongside her partner, Mark Nicholas in indie-folk band The Left Outsides, makes a peculiar brand of folk-inspired, mostly instrumental music that defies classification. It is peculiar in the literal sense, in that it could only be her, but also in the way it belongs to the outside, coming from a world beyond. Her previous solo records, All is Quiet at the Ancient Theatre and Only Darkness Now conjure times, places and worlds as though engaging in musical sorcery, working rituals, re-enacting vanished events and generally sounding as though they are being broadcast from behind a gauze curtain which separates us from the beyond. It is music as seance, played as though the composer is a vessel for voices which have no other way to reach us.

Her latest record, The Portrait You Painted Of Me continues along this unnerving path. Stripped back, incantatory and strange, the tracks are, with one exception, wordless and feature layered sounds based around her viola and her voice, both of which are deeply resonant instruments. Some tell specific histories, as though the contact of bow on string can dial up other eras. Droning viola echoes off tunnel walls, and Cotton?s eerie calls reach us from somewhere a long way beneath the earth.

Her work can be compared to conceptual art, consisting of pieces that seem complete in themselves but acquire a whole new meaning when their purpose is explained. If this makes her music sound dry, it is anything but. She expresses visceral emotions through her viola, which cries in sympathy, whispers secrets, and groans in pain. Her voice has epic qualities, rising to fill a vast soundscape on ?The Last Wooden Ship? and closing in with the walls on ?The Tunnel Underground Seemed Neverending?. Her music is also psychedelic, both because it sounds incredibly trippy, but more specifically because it uses a distorted perception by gazing at the present and seeing only the past beneath it. Precise definitions seem important in pinning down work that is meticulous and crafted, as well as enveloping and beautiful. Cotton?s talent is special, and her latest music will send you to places you never knew existed. The only problem will be finding a way back.

Description

5 Emmanuel Road,

Cambridge,

Cambridgeshire,

England,

CB1 1JW.