Lightning In A Twilight Hour

Lightning in a Twilight Hour is the continuation of the bitterly sad, musically precise work of Bobby Wratten, late of the Field Mice, Trembling Blue Stars, and more. Working with a lineup consisting of key members of these bands, the sound of the group is slightly more electronic and a little more ambient. Early releases lean more in the direction of the indie electro of Trembling Blue Stars, though their first album, 2015's Fragments of a Former Moon, did make time for sparse, ambient instrumentals. Future releases leaned toward shoegaze and experimental soundscapes, and 2022's Overwintering added pastoral folk, indie rock guitar jangle, and clipped melodies to the mix. As with previous bands, Wratten and co. hold fast to a core of sadness and gloom, while surrounding it with slowly shifting sounds that bring those feelings fully to life. Wratten was a founding member of the influential indie pop Field Mice in the late '80s, spending many years writing, playing, and singing sad songs about love won and lost. When that band folded, he went on to Northern Picture Library and Trembling Blue Stars, continuing on in much the same vein. After the latter band folded in 2010, Wratten took some time to regroup before starting his next project, Lightning in a Twilight Hour, in 2014. Working with longtime producer Ian Catt, Field Mice bassist Michael Hiscock, Trembling Blue Stars vocalist Beth Arzy, and Field Mice/Northern Picture Library vocalist (and inspiration for many of Wratten's songs) Anne Mari Barker-Davies, it's easy to understand why Lightning in a Twilight Hour shared many sonic similarities to Wratten's previous projects. Hooking up with Spanish label Elefant, the band released a single, "The Memory Museum," in late 2014, which was followed by an EP, Slow Changes, then an LP, Fragments of a Former Moon, during the first part of 2015. Very much in the vein of earlier works by Wratten, the record also took a side trip into ambient instrumental territory on a number of tracks. The group returned in April of 2016 with a four-song EP, And All the Ships at Sea, which delved into shoegaze, electronic folk, and soundscapes. The band went further out into experimental sounds on 2017's Quiet Actions, a two-song cassette release that stretches out for over half-an-hour, featuring repetition, field recordings, and found sounds. This slow turn toward a more organic, slow-to-unspool sound came to full fruition on the second Lightning in a Twilight Hour album, Overwintering. Before that, however, they released their poppiest single yet, the vocal harmony-heavy "The Circling of the Seasons," as a standalone a month before. The album proper delivered a more intimate, less immediate sound full of gently plucked guitars, wave-like synths, and plenty of space surrounding the trio of vocalists on a set of songs that sound equally inspired by melancholy British folk and bleak American slowcore of the '90s. It was released in April of 2022 by Elefant.
© Tim Sendra /TiVo