With Birthmarks, Hilary Woods joins the increasing number adopting the musical guise of witchhood. The kinship makes sense; witches were misunderstood, inventive, strong-willed, and intelligent women whose mode of expression chimed discordantly with that of broader society. People like this still exist. Now, we call them “artists”; their conjuration “art”. Woods also tackles her own pregnancy: the greatest feat of alchemy a human being can achieve.
‘Tongues of Wild Boar’ kicks off knee-deep in this alchemy. Woods’ voice is swaddled by plods of funereal timpani and dark, longing cello; a nightingale whistling through the thick canopy. Birthmarks recalls Hawthonn’s Red Goddess (of this men shall know nothing)—a similarly Romantic and pagan LP—but offers a good deal more variety, and is far thicker with texture.
In fact, some tracks here serve little purpose beyond servicing this texture. ‘Lay Bare’ is an atmospheric interlude between the album’s first and second halves which further charges the air with fog. Equally effective are second-half efforts ‘The Mouth’ and ‘Cleansing Ritual’. The former stacks hissing fissures of air and voiceless bilabial trills, which succumb in glorious exhalation to its string outro. The latter is infective; an insectoid brass buzz combining with a hiss of little wings to deeply unnerving effect.
This is not an abject or a disgusting album, though. It is rich with beauty and tenderness. ‘Orange Tree’ finds Woods both summoning and shrinking away from their internal power; the knife’s edge of excitement and anxiety which accompanies a new baby. ‘Through the Dark, Love’ reads like a PJ Harvey song banged on the other side of the wall by a ghost—touching, bittersweet but deathly (“Down, down, down…”). And closer ‘There Is No Moon’ is a quiet but tense conclusion, one that allows space for listeners to absorb the packed album it caps off. Birthmarks is a dark thicket to get lost in—but it teems with life.
Birthmarks is available for purchase and streaming here.
Words: Andrew O’Keefe