Hilary Woods is new to us at DeClunk HQ. Late to the party once again. ‘End Games’ sounds rather gorgeous and is taken from her new LP Night CRIÚ, out Oct 31st. We haven’t heard the rest yet so here is some blurb to read then give the track a listen below.
On Night CRIÚ , unmoored sonic threads recall the cracks, fringes, forgotten agency and dormant personas that surface at night, waiting to be retrieved and integrated come daylight. A ceremony of light and shade, Night CRIÚ is a record that riles against bludgeoning monoculture in its reclaiming and mourning a lost innocence all at once, and in its reaching to integrate lost and splintered parts of the whole.
Despite its economy, each song on Night CRIÚ breathes into an expansive depth of feeling quintessential of Woods’s compositions, and true to her artistry, a search for new possibilities and direction is ever present, expressed most keenly here in her writing for brass band and children’s choir.
Whilst her last record Acts of Light was in monochrome, on Night CRIÚ portals of colour burst forth through shadowy sable tones and sonics. The intergenerational presence of voices woven through its fabric, hear young and old sing side by side fostering a compelling sense of wonder, community and connection through the heart of the record. Trombones and cornets commune and rise up triumphantly in unison in brass-band procession outward from its centre, whilst lyrically, Woods reconfigures the inter-personal. Her words are mottled photographic close ups planted in the dark to bloom upward toward the light, illuminating invisible corners, and making the unseen seen.
Inspired and energised by many influences including aspects of Czech and early Italian cinema, the revival of indigenous language, a personal history of attending processions and parades, early music, the joy in dance, the immediacy of sound, and the collective 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, Latvia and Richmond Virginia between 2023 and January 2025. These songs were chosen from many early home recordings that Woods held up as mirrors of juxtaposition to each other. Written and produced by Hilary Woods, Night CRIÚ was mixed by Dean Hurley with additional production by Dean Hurley and Oliver Turvey, mastered by Brian Lucey, and featuring work by Hannah Fallon, The Hangleton brass band, Gabriel Ferrandini and Ajo Gonsenica.
For Woods “Each record is a life buoy, a raft, a snapshot, a marker in the sand, a date that requires me to meet it. Making records is a way of being”.
DeClunk 