Almost Starlight is the extraordinary new album by Jem Finer (hurdy-gurdy) and John Matthias (violin). Produced by Jay Auborn, who also plays cello on a number of the compositions, and recorded in a medieval church, deep in the Devon countryside in the Summer of 2025, the music is suffused with light, heat and the natural acoustics of the space.
The album defies categorisation; forced to pigeonhole it the nearest approximation would be ‘modern-classical’ but this ignores its myriad influences and explorations which encompass inspiration from Arvo Pärt through Terry Riley to Can via Delius, Alice Coltrane and a subtle reimagining of electronic music played purely with acoustic instruments, bending and shaping their possibilities in surprising and unexpected directions.
Jay Auborn’s production opens up and expands the music through a skilled and imaginative use of space, paying homage to the atmosphere of the church; ‘the sound evolved... chasing the imagined acoustics of that church in my mind; a place for worshipping light with sound.’
The Embrooks
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