Howl

Howl means ‘Sun’ in Cornish, and this is the Kernow singer and artist’s second album, following on from 2022’s Donsya A’n Loryow (Dance of the Moons), with which it shares a woozy, dream-infused acoustic soundscape of breathy vocals in Cornish and English, acoustic guitars, strings and drones. Howl opens with ‘Falling Through the Rising Sun’, acoustic guitar and sitar duetting over Rickman’s vocals, low enough to bear comparisons with Nico and sharing with the great 20th-century chanteuse a depth of transmission that takes these songs a long way. The musical textures shimmer and shift around her, rising and sinking and resonant with echo. It has the feeling of a procession, a soundscape of symbolism and metaphor, squawling violin rising up around the depths of her voice on ‘Bleujen an Howl’, supported by a walking-paced riff and tambourine support that leans towards the Velvets’ ‘Venus in Furs’ territory. The title-track is a haunted instrumental comprising sheets of jagged cello, drawing out a drone, and sitar, while ‘Winter Solstice’ has a restless rhythm section and the closing ‘Howlsedhesow’ circles itself under Rickman’s deep, rich vocal to mesmerising effect.