Northern Lights by Susie Hodder-Williams, Chris Caldwell & Graham Roberts

"An album of beautiful and impressionist musical landscapes: 3 large works in several movements drawing on mythology, visual imagery, and a work for Charles Jencks Garden of Cosmic Speculation."

The Northern Lights, or aurora borealis, have fascinated people for countless generations and stories trying to explain their mysterious appearance have found their way into mythology and folklore. In Norse mythology the northern lights were thought to be reflections from the shields and armour of the Valkrior (maidens who take dead warriors to Valhalla).

In Finland, the name for the aurora borealis, Revontulet, translates as “fox fires”. The name comes from an ancient Finnish fable, in which the lights were caused by a magical fox sweeping his tail across the snow, spraying it up into the sky. The music begins with Echoes of Silence – a timeless meditation that places the listener in a vast open space.
Stephen Goss © 2011

“Rendered here in woodwind tones and acoustic guitar, the ambient landscape compositions of Stephen Goss exist in the grey area where ECM chamber-jazz and HatHut minimalism shades into Windham Hill new-ageism. It’s utterly captivating: the four-part suite Northern Lights hangs like East Coast fog, clarinet and flute in sparse, unhurried collusion akin to a meditative Feldman work.”
Andy Gill, The Independent

Album Liner Notes:

"This album is a collection of musical landscapes. "Northern Lights" and "The Sea of the Edge" were commissioned specially and the other pieces have been arranged and freely adapted by the musicians. In Norse mythology the 'northern lights' or 'aurora borealis' were thought to be reflections from the shields of the Valkrior (maidens who take dead warriors to Valhalla). In Finland, they were named Revontulet (literally 'fox fires'), after an ancient Finnish fable, in which the lights were caused by a magical fox sweeping his tail across the snow, spraying it up into the sky. The music begins with "Echoes of Silence" a timeless meditation that places the listener in a vast open space.

"The Sea of the Edge" is one of the oceans of the moon. While much music depicts the moon romantically from the safe distance of the Earth, here, the cold, desolate lunar landscape is placed in the foreground. The Welsh folksong settings are followed by "The Autumn Song", which is based on various ancient Chinese poems about the parting of lovers. Specifically, this is due to the male partner having to go and serve in the building or guarding of the Great Wall of China. The music evokes the melancholic character of loss - in particular, that quality of ambiguity caused by the fact that neither partner knows if the loss is temporary or permanent.

"The Garden of Cosmic Speculation", created by Charles Jencks, is one of the most original and important gardens of the 21st century. Through large-scale sculptures and earthworks, it illustrates many concepts central to modern science. The music moves through the physical space of Jencks' garden exploring its sensuous surface. Originally for violin, cello, bass clarinet and piano, the music has been completely reworked by the musicians for this recording - sometimes (as is the case with "Quark Walk") only taking the tiniest fragment of the original piece as the basis for improvisation."

Music on the Edge explores the work of two musicians: Susie Hodder-Williams and Chris Caldwell.

Their music melds the ancient with the contemporary, creating ambient improvisations and landscape inspired soundscapes.

Utterly captivating
The Independent

Artist-in-Residence Strike-a-Light 2021

musicontheedge.com