The remembrance of a lost love is often but a whisper behind one’s ear, a subtle interruption in a thought process to call forth a happiness that once existed, and then reset an emptiness that’s replaced it. Such is the somber power behind the music of Dublin-based composer Hilary Woods. Her new single, “Black Rainbow,” off her forthcoming debut LP Colt (out June 8 on Sacred Bones), infuses elements of joy, nostalgia, and longing into a slow-moving orchestral ballad of reverberating guitar and lush swells of synthesizer. A minimalist drumbeat guides Woods down a long hallway of the past, her beautifully wistful voice maps out a scape of failed best intentions, iterating and reiterating forms of, “I just wanted you to…” Light flourishes of piano float by like childhood bubbles, popped by the word, “but,” and left damp and ruminating and grounded. But it’s not all down. One cannot help but take the beauty behind Woods’ delivery as hope, as appreciation for what once was and what may be again. Someday. Woods notes that she titled the track ”…because I loved that image, the idea that when that’s all one can see over head / when a relationship is dying between two people that once loved each other very much – there is no choice but to believe that there is something better for you at the end of it all.”
