Fovea Hex
Here Is Where We Used To Sing

THE REVIEW

Clodagh Simonds is here to remind us that time never passes. There is no past, present, or future: time is not linear. It is a lens that magnifies the best pages, a kaleidoscope that revives different sequences each time we close our eyes. There is a widespread presumption that everything is real in front of us. Yet we live in a dream of voices and reverberations to which we arrogantly, in the end, assign an arbitrary meaning. Time follows the same non-logic: time is only our imagination.

Thus, the handcrafted chisels of our Mike Oldfield in 1974 were needed to evoke that Nordic crystal song: a small revisited touch of Gaelic tradition on the bright grass of Hergest Ridge. But, as I said, time never passes: now she is 58 years old and paints with the eyes of a child a seashore as poor and mysterious as a cliff inside a glass sphere in winter.

“…racing along this beach as young boys do…”

And yet there's evolution: that progressive folk of Mellow Candle was the beginning of time. This mature voice of woven wool on complex textures is just one facet of the same prism, of the same spirit. A few electronic chimes and soundscapes, but truly insightful, are the background and landscape. A few drops of piano meet a cello. There is no need to evoke ghosts of Brian Eno and Robert Fripp, as they are much more than ghosts in this project: they have enjoyed and actively participated through the inspirations of the extraordinary Michael Begg and Colin Potter.

A maturity so profound and coherent in the lyrics and singing does not belong to any era.

Timeless, simply, it reaches the center of the heart.