Before We Lie Down in Darknesse, by The Inward Circles

Before We Lie Down in Darknesse

by The Inward Circles

supported by

bloodybook I was a little skeptical at first with how this switched up the project’s sound, but listening to this album all the way through is absolutely breathtaking! It feels like the world dying, but naturally and beautifully.

raytheotter Love this record. Album of the year. Dark, sepulchral, utterly beautiful.The night of time far surpasseth the day. Favorite track: Ghosts Were but Images and Shadows of the Soul.

Joseph Young Absolutely adore this album. It’s a mournful and brooding classic. I’m a big fan of Richard’s oeuvre and beg him to re-release the CD.

John Cratchley I think that if the Earth were capable of giving voice to lamentation this is what it would sound like…

ES I had to chose Our Light in Ashes as this was the track (aside from it being the first) that drew me into the undulating ocean of the album. I use ‘ocean’ as there are subtle undertows flooding through the tracks, threading them together. Warms waves of sound reaching toward quiet shores of solitude basking under silvered outlines sketched by the moon. Compositions such as this provide a soundtrack as I write, the mood becomes words. This album plays continuously as I write. An absolute triumph! Favorite track: Our Light in Ashes.

more...

	/

Streaming + Download

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

Purchasable with gift card

€7 EUR or more
Full Digital Discography

8

releases

Get all 8 The Inward Circles releases available on Bandcamp and save 50%.

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Before We Lie Down in Darknesse, Letters Were Between Lines, Scaleby, XII, Scaleby, And Right Lines Limit and Close All Bodies, I have heard a music and it is delirious, Belated Movements for an Unsanctioned Exhumation August 1st 1984, and Nimrod is Lost in Orion and Osyris in the Doggestarre. , and , .

Purchasable with gift card

€26 EUR or more (50% OFF)
Limited Edition CD
Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
Charcoal silkscreened CD in 6-panel 350gsm matt card 'digisleeve' enclosure.

Includes unlimited streaming of Before We Lie Down in Darknesse via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

Sold Out

	1.	Our Light in Ashes 05:26
	2.	They Closed Their Eyes as Parts Which First Die 05:34
	3.	The State of the Soul Upon Disunion 02:10
	4.	That the Spirit of One Body Passed Into Another 01:42
	5.	Ghosts Were but Images and Shadows of the Soul 04:57
	6.	And Time Hath No Wings Unto It 02:08
	7.	To Return Not Unto Ashes but Unto Dust Againe 02:44
	8.	That Which Cannot Unwish Itself 03:43
	9.	In the Oblivion of Names 02:38
	10.	The Glory of the World is Surely Over 02:48
	11.	To End Their Dayes in Fire 06:25

about

'Before We Lie Down in Darknesse' is Richard Skelton’s first full-length album as The Inward Circles in six years. It continues his preoccupation with decay and transformation, but whereas previous albums subjected pristine recordings of cellos and violas to various destructive processes, 'Before We Lie Down in Darknesse' begins with a degraded source: a discarded fifty-year-old vinyl recording of Baroque recorder music that Skelton discovered in the Scottish Borders.

The entire album is composed from a single six-second fragment: a solitary wavering recorder note ringing out into the silence of the record’s runout groove. In the wake of impending global environmental collapse and widespread species extinction, it is not difficult to perceive the broader resonances of this act of auditory salvage. The music of 'Before We Lie Down in Darknesse' glimmers all the more brightly because it is recuperated from a source that is on the point of disappearing. Even as Skelton acknowledges—via the words of Thomas Browne—our seemingly inevitable descent into impending darkness, he cannot help but offer a small gesture of hope; a belief in the possibility of change and renewal.

*

"Constructed entirely from a dusty six-second fragment of Baroque recorder music, Richard Skelton's first new work as ‘The Inward Circles’ in 6 years is a stunning evocation of environmental collapse." (Boomkat)

“He conjures up atmospheres that feel as haunted and bereft as they do beautiful – tragically, even at times sinisterly, beautiful.” (A Closer Listen)

“Skelton spins a simple sonic fragment into an interrogation of decay, deep time, and death. Rolling waves of sound ring out through misty white noise like foghorns, hanging sluggishly then fading, as if they only have the capacity for two or three notes before collapsing under the strain.” (The Quietus)

“digs deep and low into the cavernous catacombs of unexplored sonic void” (Headphone Commute)

credits

released August 5, 2023

Album and track titles from Thomas Browne’s Urn Burial (1658).

license

about

The Inward Circles

contact / help

Contact The Inward Circles

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like The Inward Circles, you may also like:

A Guidonian Hand
by Richard Skelton

supported by 134 fans who also own “Before We Lie Down in Darknesse”
go to album
The Oracle Bone
by Richard Skelton

supported by 111 fans who also own “Before We Lie Down in Darknesse”
go to album
Song To Vega
by Richard Skelton

supported by 106 fans who also own “Before We Lie Down in Darknesse”

Almost mainstream, this one, commercial even. I have nothing against that when it's done this well. Bring it on! Gorgeous. charlieleb
go to album
Imerro
by C. Diab

Canadian producer and multi-instrumentalist galvanizes bowed guitars, cellos, and synths into an off-kilter exploration of heat and desire. Bandcamp New & Notable Feb 25, 2024
go to album
Leviathan
by Stephen Roddy

Written in response to the climate crisis, “Leviathan” is a brooding and beautifully unsettling batch of dark ambient songs. Bandcamp New & Notable Sep 16, 2023
go to album
Nucleus of the Decay
by Ábris Gryllus

This two-track conceptual EP from the ambient artist focuses on life changes and transitions. Bandcamp New & Notable Sep 12, 2023
go to album
Stadial
by Richard Skelton

supported by 106 fans who also own “Before We Lie Down in Darknesse”

Glacial does not begin to describe this piece. Richard's mastery of sound evokes the sensation of being in the time and place he is eliciting and no one does it with more sensitivity and beauty. Burton Thomas
go to album