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Only Darkness Now

by Alison Cotton

/
  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Cardinal Fuzz (Europe / Rest of World)
    Feeding Tube (USA / Rest Of World)
    Artwork and Design by Luke Drozd

    ALISON COTTON
    Only Darkness Now
    Cardinal Fuzz / Feeding Tube

    Here is the second solo LP by the wonderful London-based singer/multi-instrumentalist Alison Cotton. Originally issued on cassette by the mighty Bloxham Tapes, just about everyone who heard Only Darkness Now suggested it might make for an excellent LP. And hey -- they were right.

    Ms. Cotton has a storied past performing with Saloon and The Eighteenth Day of May, and she still may be found doing likewise with The Left Outsides. And don't get me wrong -- those are all great bands, but solo work allows Alison to follow different and often darker paths through the forest of sound. Of which this album is a perfect example.

    It begins with a sidelong instrumental track, “Behind the Spiderweb Gate,” during which Cotton displays her immense drone chops, organizing rich, thick layers of viola, Omnichord and voice into the soundtrack for a totally immersive trip. You could spend a whole year listening to this one.

    The second side starts with “In Solitude I Will Fade Away,” a collage of Alison's voice, twinned and then some. It's short and sweet with just a little drumming to move things along. “How My Heart Bled in Bleeding Heart Yard” brims with as much longing as it title suggests. It opens with a long instrumental passage, emphasizing the human pace of a harmonium's breath patterns, soon joined by a viola, also offering tones of a very human quality. All of this swells into a chorale of immense and mournful depth before being joined by Nico-like vocals that raise a wordless alarm. ”The Hill Was Hollow” is a short mystery for percussion and violin. Unravel at your own peril. Finally there is “Shirt of Lace.” This is a studio recording of one of Alison's regular live covers. The song is by the late Dorothy Carter (a visionary American musician whose work bridged experimental and medieval musics) and Cotton's version is a sheer blast -- her vocals curling and twisting high above a supple bed of key drones, string plucks and sliding arco passageways.

    Wow, what a great record. It's one of the the very few albums I can name that matches the cold
    fire of Nico's Marble Index and it does so without taking a single step that isn't purely Alison's own.

    Prepare your record shelf to deal with a miracle. Only Darkness Now.

    --Byron Coley
    .....

    All tracks written by Alison Cotton except Shirt of Lace (written by Dorothy Carter)

    Produced by Mark Nicholas
    Mixed by Mark Nicholas/Alison Cotton
    Behind the Spiderweb Gate first appeared as a track on the Longform Editions Bandcamp project

    Mastered by Dean Honer
    .....

    REVIEWS ETC:
    .
    Number 1- The Quietus New Weird Britain End of Year List
    Number 11 - The Quietus Top 100 Albums of 2020
    Number 10 - Anti Gravity Bunny - Top Drone Records of 2020
    Stewart Lee’s Cultural Year 2020 - 4****
    Album of the Week - Michael Lavorgna’s Twittering Machines
    .
    5***** (Record Collector)
    “Bathed in arcane allure, Alison Cotton’s records - solo or with The Left Outsides - loom like mesmerising apparitions. They bring folk music’s dark, pagan origins into modern times with fearless sonic experimentation, haunted by flickering ghosts and shadows on medieval walls; genuinely different and all her own”.
    Kris Needs
    .
    5***** (Shindig! Magazine)
    “Her ever expanding stained glass window continues to beam with unearthly light”.
    .
    "This is an expressive and thoroughly absorbing album, which envelops the listener and takes them to places that seem both familiar and terrifying, halfway between inner and outer worlds".
    Tom Bolton, The Quietus
    .
    “Alison Cotton’s solo work.....speaks of places, people and stories not quite of this world, while orchestrating folk and drone elements meticulously as if following an arcane ritual”
    Antonio Poscic - The Wire
    .
    “Behind The Spiderweb Gate is a wordless Spector-wall of violated cat gut, John Cale garrotting Arvo Part in a 1965 New York art-loft, the sequencing equivalent of a spiked human head warning curious souls away”.
    Stewart Lee - The Idler Magazine
    .
    “This is spectral, superlative stuff that moves at the refreshingly near-inert pace of the pre-industrial countryside”.
    Noel Gardner, New Weird Britain column - The Quietus
    .
    “I cannot recommend this record highly enough as Astonishing as it is Astounding and i sense I am not alone in this”…..
    Jonathan Donahue, Mercury Rev
    .
    “This is also one of those records that acts as a gateway. Entering somewhere else using music whether by replicating a landscape, involving a memory or just tuning out and can be a magical thing. It can also be a daunting one. And Cotton’s work demands – and creates – a sense of concentration and rigour; despite its seeming simplicity isn’t there to please. Like an amiable presence whose core power you only start to sketch out after a few meetings, Only Darkness Now needs respect. Even with short, sharp cuts, such as ‘The Hill Was Hollow’, which feel like they’ve been etched into rock with a knife”.
    Richard Foster - Louder Than War
    .
    “Once again Alison has shown what an outstanding musician she is, and suffice to say Only Darkness Now is yet another superb piece of a complex yet intriguing jigsaw of musical pieces. Taken on its own it’s a wonderful album which revels in its unique sound, but as part of an ever-growing catalogue it introduces some intriguing themes which serve to build the music of Alison Cotton even further. Whether it be as part of band, or solo, you will always find something that stops you just for a second”.
    Martyn Coppack, Echoes & Dust
    .
    “Despite the Dylanesque darkness of the album title this is not a gloomy record and is a masterclass in superior mood enhancing music. Alison has built firmly on the musical palette, atmospheres and textures of her first album release ‘All Is Quiet At The Ancient Theatre’ and the more recent mini album released on Clay Pipe Music, ‘The Girl I Left Behind Me’ to create a wonderful minimalism that is capable of creating the most lyrical and cinematic of soundscapes and inventive compositions and arrangements that bring together a number of musical worlds in a refreshing and ,most importantly, hugely entertaining way.”
    Francis Comyn, Terrascope
    .
    “A beautiful stark sadness that somehow not only intrigues and mystifies but draws the listener into an otherworldly place”.
    Keith How - Penny Black Music
    .
    "In truth, this is music that feels like it has just always been there, out in the ether from time immemorial waiting to be heard. How lucky we are that we have Alison Cotton to channel it for us".
    Jamie Grimes, The Sleeping Shaman
    .
    "Both Feeding Tube and Cardinal Fuzz have done well to showcase what’s so entrancing about Cotton and The Left Outsides and its quite an enticing spread of albums from them this year. If you’re unfamiliar, this trio is an excellent primer on what’s made the band and Cotton’s contributions so vital over the past few years".
    Raven Sings The Blues
    ... more
    Purchasable with gift card

      £7 GBP  or more

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    More CDRs now back in stock!

    ALISON COTTON
    Only Darkness Now
    Cardinal Fuzz / Feeding Tube
    Artwork and Design by Luke Drozd

    Here is the second solo LP by the wonderful London-based singer/multi-instrumentalist Alison Cotton. Originally issued on cassette by the mighty Bloxham Tapes, just about everyone who heard Only Darkness Now suggested it might make for an excellent LP. And hey -- they were right.

    Ms. Cotton has a storied past performing with Saloon and The Eighteenth Day of May, and she still may be found doing likewise with The Left Outsides. And don't get me wrong -- those are all great bands, but solo work allows Alison to follow different and often darker paths through the forest of sound. Of which this album is a perfect example.

    It begins with a sidelong instrumental track, “Behind the Spiderweb Gate,” during which Cotton displays her immense drone chops, organizing rich, thick layers of viola, Omnichord and voice into the soundtrack for a totally immersive trip. You could spend a whole year listening to this one.

    The second side starts with “In Solitude I Will Fade Away,” a collage of Alison's voice, twinned and then some. It's short and sweet with just a little drumming to move things along. “How My Heart Bled in Bleeding Heart Yard” brims with as much longing as it title suggests. It opens with a long instrumental passage, emphasizing the human pace of a harmonium's breath patterns, soon joined by a viola, also offering tones of a very human quality. All of this swells into a chorale of immense and mournful depth before being joined by Nico-like vocals that raise a wordless alarm. ”The Hill Was Hollow” is a short mystery for percussion and violin. Unravel at your own peril. Finally there is “Shirt of Lace.” This is a studio recording of one of Alison's regular live covers. The song is by the late Dorothy Carter (a visionary American musician whose work bridged experimental and medieval musics) and Cotton's version is a sheer blast -- her vocals curling and twisting high above a supple bed of key drones, string plucks and sliding arco passageways.

    Wow, what a great record. It's one of the the very few albums I can name that matches the cold fire of Nico's Marble Index and it does so without taking a single step that isn't purely Alison's own.

    Prepare your record shelf to deal with a miracle. Only Darkness Now.

    --Byron Coley



    All tracks written by Alison Cotton except Shirt of Lace (written by Dorothy Carter)

    Produced by Mark Nicholas
    Mixed by Mark Nicholas/Alison Cotton
    Behind the Spiderweb Gate first appeared as a track on the Longform Editions Bandcamp project

    Mastered by Dean Honer

    Includes unlimited streaming of Only Darkness Now via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ... more
    ships out within 3 days

      £10 GBP or more 

     

  • Full Digital Discography

    Get all 12 The Left Outsides releases available on Bandcamp and save 30%.

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Alison Cotton Live at Cafe Oto, London - 27 October 2021, The Girl I Left Behind Me, Are You Sure I Was There?, Only Darkness Now, A Place to Hide, Behind the Spider Web Gate, All Is Quiet At The Ancient Theatre, All That Remains, and 4 more. , and , .

    Purchasable with gift card

      £49 GBP or more (30% OFF)

     

  • Limited edition cassette
    Cassette + Digital Album

    Pro-dubbed cassette tape in plastic case and outer O-card box. Run of 150 copies. No repress. 30 artist copies available here.

    'Only Darkness Now' is available on cassette via Bloxham Tapes (31st July 2020), followed by a vinyl pressing via Cardinal Fuzz/Feeding Tube Records (Oct/Nov 2020)

    On this, the follow-up to her previous album ‘All Is Quiet At The Ancient Theatre’, Cotton returns with a selection of new works that bridge the everyday world of dust and grit with that of the churning stars above us, a sound both otherworldly and utterly down-to-earth.

    Cotton’s now recognisable instrumentation (including viola, chimes and Omnichord alongside percussion, harmonium, piano and voice) yields maximum impact here – and atop the cleansing drones perches Alison’s magisterial vocal, surveying the widescreen cosmic psychedelia unfurling below.

    Here we have Cotton’s take on Dorothy Carter's 'Shirt of Lace', liberated from its rustic roots, set free into the cosmos. It’s less a cover and much more an interpretation; a jumping-off point that’s faithful to the source material.

    We also see narrative threads continue to be woven as we return to the protagonist from Cotton’s song ‘The Bells of St Agnes’, as part two of her tale is revealed on the track ‘In Solitude I Will Fade Away’.

    This album of tone-poems bears witness to an artist convening with the complex strata of our world, both physical and spiritual. They leave behind the thrum and rubble of our daily grind, lifting ever up and vibrating outwards into the many vast unknowns.

    .....

    released July 31, 2020

    All tracks written by Alison Cotton except Shirt of Lace (written by Dorothy Carter)

    Produced by Mark Nicholas
    Mixed by Mark Nicholas/Alison Cotton
    Behind the Spiderweb Gate first appeared as a track on the Longform Editions Bandcamp project

    Mastered by Dean Honer

    Design by Luke Drozd

    Includes unlimited streaming of Only Darkness Now via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ... more

    Sold Out

  • Limited edition heavy black vinyl
    Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Limited to 600 copied worldwide, here are 120 artist copies for sale. Released on Cardinal Fuzz (UK) and Feeding Tube (USA). For USA sales visit feedingtuberecords.com/releases/only-darkness-now/ for the most competitive USA shipping price.

    Release date 30 October
    Shipping date 30 October

    ALISON COTTON
    Only Darkness Now
    Cardinal Fuzz / Feeding Tube LP
    Artwork and Design by Luke Drozd

    Here is the second solo LP by the wonderful London-based singer/multi-instrumentalist Alison Cotton. Originally issued on cassette by the mighty Bloxham Tapes, just about everyone who heard Only Darkness Now suggested it might make for an excellent LP. And hey -- they were right.

    Ms. Cotton has a storied past performing with Saloon and The Eighteenth Day of May, and she still may be found doing likewise with The Left Outsides. And don't get me wrong -- those are all great bands, but solo work allows Alison to follow different and often darker paths through the forest of sound. Of which this album is a perfect example.

    It begins with a sidelong instrumental track, “Behind the Spiderweb Gate,” during which Cotton displays her immense drone chops, organizing rich, thick layers of viola, Omnichord and voice into the soundtrack for a totally immersive trip. You could spend a whole year listening to this one.

    The second side starts with “In Solitude I Will Fade Away,” a collage of Alison's voice, twinned and then some. It's short and sweet with just a little drumming to move things along. “How My Heart Bled in Bleeding Heart Yard” brims with as much longing as it title suggests. It opens with a long instrumental passage, emphasizing the human pace of a harmonium's breath patterns, soon joined by a viola, also offering tones of a very human quality. All of this swells into a chorale of immense and mournful depth before being joined by Nico-like vocals that raise a wordless alarm. ”The Hill Was Hollow” is a short mystery for percussion and violin. Unravel at your own peril. Finally there is “Shirt of Lace.” This is a studio recording of one of Alison's regular live covers. The song is by the late Dorothy Carter (a visionary American musician whose work bridged experimental and medieval musics) and Cotton's version is a sheer blast -- her vocals curling and twisting high above a supple bed of key drones, string plucks and sliding arco passageways.

    Wow, what a great record. It's one of the the very few albums I can name that matches the cold fire of Nico's Marble Index and it does so without taking a single step that isn't purely Alison's own.

    Prepare your record shelf to deal with a miracle. Only Darkness Now.

    --Byron Coley

    .....

    All tracks written by Alison Cotton except Shirt of Lace (written by Dorothy Carter)

    Produced by Mark Nicholas
    Mixed by Mark Nicholas/Alison Cotton
    Behind the Spiderweb Gate first appeared as a track on the Longform Editions Bandcamp project

    Mastered by Dean Honer

    Includes unlimited streaming of Only Darkness Now via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ... more

    Sold Out

  • Silver Vinyl LP reissued by Friendly Recordings Released 5th November 2021
    Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    With the steady gliding viola & the early introduction of choral forces, Only Darkness Now is a more alive, peopled landscape than its predecessor.

    The mood remains contemplative and concerns itself with medieval themes and vivid, poetic depictions of Gothic and historical netherworlds & torment – we see this in the extended album centrepiece 'Behind the Spiderweb Gate' and in 'In Solitude I Will Fade Away' along with bleeding hearts and a hollow hill.

    However, Only Darkness Now despite its title has a brighter expanse than the stillness achieved on her debut. Here Cotton envelops the listener with layers of viola, chimes & Omnichord - an electrical ghost-like medieval drone, alongside percussion, harmonium, piano & voice.

    The higher registers of her viola flicker and glide throughout like a dancing pagan ritual or ceremonial fire caught on wavering sepia tinged film. If it weren't for the disruption of last year ODN would've surely gained a wider audience, sitting comfortably alongside the new classical scores of Max Richter.

    This is a confident record; Cotton's voice washes in layers with occasional tense, sparse passages that position her compositions in early music, medieval and folk traditions away from the more populist neo-classicism. To illustrate her widening reach as a performer Cotton lifts album closer Shirt of Lace, by medieval revivalist and experimental dulcimer player Dorothy Carter, from a Celtic lament to cathedral like grandeur.

    Originally a cassette release on Bloxham Tapes with a limited vinyl pressing by Cardinal Fuzz and Feeding Tube sold out almost instantly with little press. One expects this'll be the last chance to own Alison's masterful second album on the cusp of her next forward looking steps.

    Coloured vinyl & altered artwork by Luke Drozd

    Includes unlimited streaming of Only Darkness Now via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ... more

    Sold Out

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credits

released August 6, 2020

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The Left Outsides London, UK

The Left Outsides are: Mark Nicholas and Alison Cotton, a wife and husband duo based in London, England whose atmospheric, hypnotic songs echo Nico's icy European folk, pastoral psychedelia and chilly English fields at dawn.

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