The Inward Circles ~ Before We Lie Down in Darknesse

Anyone diving into Richard Skelton’s Before We Lie Down In Darknesse and expecting to encounter his uniquely sumptuous, sonorous layers of music may be in for a bit of a surprise. 

Some of the same sources that inform other releases from Skelton’s guise as The Inward Circles can be discerned on the new album. As with And Right Lines Limit and Close All Bodies (2017), Sir Thomas Browne’s august and mysterious work Hydriotaphia, Or Urne-Burial provides a conceptual guiding light and a quotable source. And as on 2015’s Belated Movements for an Unsanctioned Exhumation August 1^st 1984, there is a continued fascination with the interment and exhumation of human remains, reflected in Skelton’s gripping exploration of distorted and degraded sound elements. Finally, there is Skelton’s meticulous mastery of studio production, evident in all his work. He conjures up atmospheres that feel as haunted and bereft as they do beautiful – tragically, even at times sinisterly, beautiful.

Corpses, bog bodies, rot and decay, and remains that crumble to dust or vanish in ash are all points of contemplation and inspiration. Notions of the earth as an incidental preserver of bodies and an indifferent composting pit abound. Skelton has got his hands quite dirty delving in these zones and transferring what he’s found to his music. Long, resonant, ringing tones swell and recede throughout before flaring into gritty, howling blooms of distortion, while keening, high-pitched glints of sound flash and fade above. Through all of the glorious, hair-raising ruckus, one still always feels the downward draw of earth’s gravity like a final, fatal address.

BWLDID, however, floats above all of that, with music that, by comparison, has turned its focus skyward. Not to suggest that Skelton is bordering on Cocteau Twins territory. The focus is simply on the upper register. The sound is more diffused: textured exhalations and diaphanous gusts. Individual track elements have more space in which to hover. Bass tones feel thinned out, subsisting as subdued pulses, not foundational blocks.

Many of the tracks are shorter in length, almost sketch-like. “The State of the Soul Upon Disunion” is a fleeting, shimmering minor-chord-fever of unrest that dissolves into sustained silence before finishing. “That the Spirit of One Body Passed Into Another” opens with crystalline, atonal pads before a keening train-whistle cry tears the mood apart. Icy echoes close the scene. The two tracks combined, laden with anguished emotion, take up four minutes of space but suggest cavernous depths. The music is unhurried and resolute, but the emotions are raw, marbled with despair.

Near the album’s end, the track “The Glory of the World is Surely Over,” all sighing, spent pads and listless chords fading to nothing, is accompanied by the distant sound of a fireworks display, a gesture that in this context feels poignant rather than heavy-handed. The party is over. Across the entirety of BWLDID is the feeling of a cry being sent up – a lament for something or someone lost.

Perhaps the dying body Skelton is considering this time is no longer human. Perhaps it’s the earth itself. How can such an ultimate loss be acknowledged if there are no living things left to register it? Skelton is prudent enough to not attempt an answer. But the ideas and feelings he raises make Before We Lie Down In Darknesse a crucial addition to his body of work. (Damian Van Denburgh)