The Dark is Rising

by Handspan

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pcoristi This amazing sound track brought me right back to a time in my life when I saw the world as full of wonder and positive possibilities.

And made me realize that can still be the case! Favorite track: Theme from The Dark is Rising.

Alex Wells I've been listening to this album since 2020 and i don't think there's any other album that has hit the spot for me in terms of Folk Horror. It conjures up strong images of rural villages, dark forest celebrations and rituals, 70s children's TV horror and general feelings of nostalgia that's tinged with something darker through distant memory. I keep coming back to it because no other electronic Folk album has made me feel the way this one does. Favorite track: Gramarye.

curlydog This track is pure hauntology.
Strangely compelling, mysterious
and evocative and yet intangible.
Somehow reminiscent of Paddy Kingsland's score for "The Changes". Favorite track: The Strange White World.

Andrew Breeding The sound has a timeless, mystic quality that is a good fit for this tale of a young "old one." It echoes the magical musical phrases described in the book, with elements that evoke a mythic past. All that and it is pleasant to listen to as well. Favorite track: I Do Not Dance.

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1.	Theme from The Dark is Rising 05:22	info
2.	The Strange White World 03:17	info
3.	White Horse 01:35	info
4.	Will's Theme/Essence of the Light 01:31	info
5.	The Walker 02:20	info
6.	Nothing Sinister About Maggie 04:27	info
7.	Flight from the Rider 04:53	info
8.	Merriman and the Lady 01:54	info
9.	I Do Not Dance 03:24	info
10.	Gramarye 05:24	info
11.	The Hunting of the Wren 02:53	info
12.	The Coming of the Cold 03:45	info
13.	Liht Mec Heht Gewyrcan 02:20	info
14.	The Hunt Rides 07:52	info

about

This album is a soundtrack to the book The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper. Some of the tracks actually accompany the text if you read it at just the right speed. Others are simply inspired by moments in the book. I'll leave it to you to decide which are which.

"The album is marvellously redolent of Kingsland’s work in particular, and the perfect musical realisation of a story steeped in traditional myth... Combining swimmy, retro synths with “early” instrumentation (you have to admire the dedication of a man who can teach himself to play the Finnish kantele), the album is as crisply keen as the sweeping snowdrifts and slate-grey sky that lend the book such an air of forbidding, suffocating stillness." Bob Fischer, Fortean Times

One of Concrete Islands' 50 Albums of the Year 2019.

credits

released June 21, 2019

Composed, performed and produced by Rob Colling
Mixed by Rob Colling except track 1 mixed by Benge at MemeTune Studios
Mastered by Benge at MemeTune Studios
Rooks recorded by Geoff Sample (wildsong.co.uk)
Cover illustration by Jane Godson
Original cassette liner notes by Charlie Brigden
Art direction by Stuart McLean
Inspired by The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper

This album was originally released by The Dark Outside in a limited run of 100 cassettes. There are none left.

Thanks to Stuart and Ben for being the first to believe in me and the last to get impatient. Thanks Geoff, Charlie and Jane for your irreplaceable contributions. Thanks a million Benge for your forbearance in the face of my pernicketyness, and for setting the whole tone of the album with your mesmerising mix of the Theme. Thanks Ben Newton for building a unique and beautiful kantele, then moving to Australia with a suitcase too small to fit it in. Thanks to all family and friends who have been supportive - you know who you are and you know how much I appreciate you. Thanks to Ian for belief in me above and beyond the call of duty - cheers dude. Thanks to the Old Ones of #TheDarkIsReading, who to my great delight truly "got it" and gave me the impetus to finish the project. The biggest thanks of all to Millie and Rach for putting up with me and my horrid noises, and for giving me a reason to create anything at all in the first place. And the whole thing simply wouldn't exist without the extraordinary imagination and skill of Susan Cooper. Go read the book.

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about

Handspan Joensuu, Finland

A man and a big pile of ageing electronics, transplanted from the north-east of England and now based in Joensuu, Finland. Debut album The Dark is Rising, a soundtrack to the classic children's folk-horror novel by Susan Cooper, was released on cassette on midwinter's eve 2018. ... more

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