Hilary Woods Birthmarks [Sacred Bones]
The latest full length from moody multi-disciplinarian, Hilary Woods, marks another leap in the erstwhile JJ72 bassist’s musical metamorphosis. Principally recorded while heavily pregnant; Birthmarks’ eight deeply ambient, richly appointed tracks can be read as a meditation on one’s own selfhood and what it means to gestate another life while facing an uncertain future – to put it generously. Birthmarks’ unique alchemy is born of its juxtapositions, as rumbling, brutal tones evolve into more delicate, ethereal textures and vice-versa as Woods and Co. playfully blur the line between unorthodox percussion, woodwinds and studio trickery.
DW