SILVER MOTH
Black Bay (Bella Union)
Initially conceived online and realised in the space of just eight days, from writing through tracking to mixing and overdubbing, Black Bay is the creation of a seven-strong collective who only all came together in person for the first time in a car park in Ullapool, en route for the Isle of Lewis and the recording studio from which the album takes its name. Gambles don’t come much bigger, especially for one of their number – Mogwai’s Stuart Braithwaite – but this one has paid off handsomely.
Braithwaite’s involvement invites comparisons with his best-known project, and sure enough opener Henry treads perhaps overly familiar ground. But slow-burning beast Hello Doom is far more impactful, guitars gradually but firmly pushed well into the red before the storm subsides; The Eternal, vocalist Elisabeth Elektra’s eulogy for a friend, draws on the Gaelic keening tradition, transforming the anguish of loss into something dazzlingly transcendental; and the bewitching Gaelic Psalms – Matthew Rochford’s spoken-word vocals set to folk horror drones and watery sloshing – has the Outer Hebrides deep in its bones.
words BEN WOOLHEAD