On May 7th, Scottish quartet Gnoss return with their new album ‘The Light of the Moon‘ (available to pre-order now). Created in Scotland’s northern isles by Orcadians Aidan Moodie (vocals, acoustic guitar) and Graham Rorie (fiddle, mandolin, electric tenor guitar) in 2015, the duo quickly upped the ante to a four-piece with the addition of Perthshire’s Connor Sinclair on flute and whistles and Clackmannanshire’s Craig Baxter on bodhran and percussion. For this release, they are also joined again by Braebach’s James Lindsay on double bass.
In our review of their 2019 album Drawn from Deep Water, Aaron Jackson declared it their best yet. After hearing The River, from their new album, the video for which we have the pleasure of premiering below, I can honestly say they are continuing on a very clear upward trajectory. The River is a gorgeously upbeat number that just oozes the colours of summer with a crossover appeal that has the potential to grow their audience still further.
Lyrically, it includes some gems of wisdom in which a girl spends spring growing sunflowers only to give them away – ‘knows she can always grow them back again’. It touches on the temporal nature of our lives ‘Hard rain doesn’t mean the clouds will stay’ and it reminded me of the Japanese saying Ichigo Ichie – how every moment we experience is unique and we therefore never experience it again – an encouragement to make every moment count now rather than be looking to the future with hope or the past with regret…it’s a message that doesn’t manage to stay at the forefront of the mind of the song’s protagonist who doesn’t ‘…listen much anyway…’ But there’s hope.
Watch their accompanying ‘behind-the-scenes’ video below which was filmed by Skerryvore’s Scott Wood who also co-produced the album and was edited by Aidan Moodie.
Gnoss shared the following on ‘The River’:
This one’s a slight departure from our usual sound! We built up a bunch of electric guitar layers (played by Graham on his Electric Tenor) and used these to build a pulse for the song. This laid a foundation that all the other sounds cling to.
Another thing we messed around with was stacking similar-sounding layers on top of each other – two acoustic guitar parts, a snare drum mimicking Craig’s bodhran, Connor’s harmony behind the lead vocal – which creates this sense of forward motion. It ended up delivering the sentiment nicely, a song about moving forward.
Definitely would like to thank James Lindsay on double bass – his part really brings this one to life.
Pre-Order The Light of the Moon now for release on 7th May 2021 at www.gnossmusic.bandcamp.com