When first encountering ALL HANDS_MAKE LIGHT back in 2021, I was struck by how Ariel Engle (La Force, Broken Social Scene) and Efrim Manuel Menuck (Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Thee Silver Mt. Zion) managed to transform pandemic anxiety and isolation into indomitable hymns of hope, optimism, and light. That’s not to say their extended tone poems and thrumming sound collages were roses and sunshine (most definitely they are not), but it’s not surprising that their upcoming album “Darling The Dawn” draws its thematic notes from the start of a new day. Menuck says this album began “with an idea of making a long thing about ‘THE DAWN’, the different weights of its radiance, the way it kisses our dumb faces when we rise and leave the night behind, the heaviness of that light when you haven’t slept.”
The first single, “We Live On A Fucking Planet And Baby That’s The Sun,” is a mind-blowing ten-minute knockout that captures all of those feelings. Like the first crack of morning light piercing night’s darkness, Engle’s mysterious voice begins dispelling the heaviness of Menuck’s maudlin synth drone with a spellbinding melody. Violinist Jessica Moss and SUUNS’ drummer Liam O’Neill appear out of the murmuring ether, adding muscle and momentum as the song follows the sun ever upward, its brilliance simultaneously waking us from sleep and forcing us to turn away from its luminance.
I’ve spent the last seven days dealing with a profound loss and grief that I have been expecting but was emotionally unprepared for. Solace and relief have not come easy these last few days, but whenever I listen to “We Live On A Fucking Planet And Baby That’s The Sun,” I’m wrapped in a comforting numbness, an insulator against the guilt that has dominated my waking hours. When dark thoughts keep me from sleep, ALL HANDS_MAKE LIGHT reminds me that dawn is waiting to kiss me awake on the other side.
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