Winterlight Hope Dies Last CATMD186

"Hope Dies Last" is the debut album from Tim Ingham's sun-kissed instrumental project Winterlight. Including new and previously unreleased material, the album also features a few reworked tracks from a limited edition album by Ingham's now absorbed Lightsway moniker, originally released in mid 2008 by Distant Noise. These older songs have been rebooted and recoupled with the new under the Winterlight name for his splashdown on the emotionally driven n5MD imprint . On several of "Hope Dies Last" songs Ingham has enlisted a few of his friends to provide some new angles to the music. A revamped "A Sky Full Of Clouds" sees Becca Riedtmann providing an ever expansive vocal delivery while Mike Cadoo (aka Bitcrush) supports with some bass and drum programing. In addition, on one of the album's most hopeful tracks, "Between Joy", Aidan Love, whose previous credits include Maps and Goldfrapp, provides a bit of his mixing desk skills. Ingham's brand of electronically shadowed shoegaze lays somewhere between the chime-y ethereal pop of Ulrich Schnauss and wide screen ambient of label-mates port-royal all done with some of the best delay and reverb adorned guitar work since Slowdive's shoegazer classic "Souvlaki". A great debut from an artist to watch... [Learn more about Winterlight...]

Vanguard Online

On the snappily named n5MD label, we have a gorgeous and dreamy album of floating textures and gentle metronomics. Winterlight is a shoegaze album for quieter moments, for contemplation. A sheen of distorted guitar colours washes around like waves on the shore while beats keep it all moving in a generally peaceful way. You’ll notice it is all instrumental except for some vocal textures layered into the opening track.

Points of reference would be Slowdive and The Cocteau Twins, the appeal would be to people looking for a noisy version of ambient, to someone wanting the effects of electronic music (like on the frequently featured here AD Music label) with less obvious synth sounds and more organic textures. Tim Ingham has included reworked material from his Lightsway days and added new things, mostly himself, with just the occasional collaborator. You can practically hear him, after the rest of the world is asleep, up late with his laptop, adding layer on layer as he re-listens, building up a depth and texture you can chew on.

The feel is wholegrain and healthy while acknowledging the lost evenings of drunken fuzz-brained noise from a gilded past. An ideal album for a thirty-something remembering eardrum damage at a My Bloody Valentine gig. vivid riot

I have been a fan of Winterlight AKA Tim Ingham for a number of years now. His music is a perfect choice after hard days work. I put my headphones on, I open a drink (Something relaxing. I am sure you get my drift.) and lose myself in a barrage of of wondrous sounds. Without trying to sound like I am writing a M & S food advert, I would sum Winterlight up by saying that if you like Ulrich Schnauss and and Slowdive then Winterlight will be right up your Autumnal street.

This isn’t just Ambient.

Hope Dies last is the brand new album from Winterlight and this is his most accomplished release to date. 8/10

Here I caught up with the man behind the music for a few words.

Your new album Hope Dies last is receiving a lot of critical acclaim. How does this release differ from your past work?

“My previous releases have been the Lightsway (Tim’s other project) material which was basically just demos and a couple of singles, Mirror and Kissed, which I am very proud of but for various reasons I don’t think many people heard. This album has been worked on until I am happy with the results and is released through n5md a label that I feel understands the music, supports what I do , has a great roster and enables me to be heard in a way I haven’t been heard before.” You are really into your Shoegaze and Ambient sounds; do you ever get the urge to do something that is harsher than those genres? Maybe a death metal band or something crazy like that?

“Well Jamie, who plays some guitar with me, plays in a post punk band and he asked me to play with some friends recently in a Stooges covers band for a night, does that count? I used to play more punky stuff when I was younger but nowadays I feel I am getting on a bit to do that. You end up looking like Mick Jagger trying hard to stay young. I like the putting your feet up feel to more ambient sounds these days. Mind you I might fancy doing some drum and bass…” Give us three artists that inspire you creatively and three artists that people would be surprised to know that you like.

“Port-Royal, as well as musically Attilio is a great friend.”!

Bitcrush, I love the sound of Bitcrush and Mike Cadoo is a tremendously supportive label boss.

Robin Guthrie; I’m always trying to get my stuff to sound as lush as his does.

Unfortunately I am quite open about my music listening habits so i suppose some will know some of this.

The Mob, my favourite band from the anarcho punk era (I have to agree with Tim here. A real gem from the past. Ed.)

The Beach Boys, I suppose a bit predictable really but brian Wilson really was a bit of a genius in the studio.

Photek, I have a bit of a soft spot for drum and bass.”

Ok the final words to you. Get something off your chest, anything!

Buy my album! There seem to be plenty of listeners but not as many sales. I wonder why... [sic]magazine

Tim Ingham’s (first?) full length as Winterlight injects some much-needed warmth into the electronica world. Crushing sadness and icy impassion can be wonderfully moving but there’s room for something else. And Ingham delivers a sparkling, spinning and grinning piece of work that simply cannot fail to delight. Hope Dies Last is a cuddly toy of a record, a veritable hug in a bubble. It could go ‘pop’ at any moment but before that let’s just enjoy the sunlight reflecting off its surface tension while it lasts – a simple, child-like pleasure masking a fragile complexity.

Hope Dies Last is a joy to listen to from start to finish. The album opens with ‘Sky Full Of Clouds’, a swelling piece that recalls labelmates Lights Out Asia. I soon get the impression that Tim Ingham is every bit the connoisseur of indietronica (and its forerunners) as myself. Influenced by legends such as Cocteau Twins and Slowdive, ‘his’ wings make him fly pretty close to the likes of Ulrich Schnauss. (‘Your Wings Make You Fly’) Portal offer another reference point as does Manual. Yet here there is a striking contrast to be drawn. Manuals best work (Azure Vista) is rapture but it is also overlong and lacking in variety. When he tried to diverge a bit, on Drowned In Light, it didn’t quite come off. Thankfully Hope Dies Last is wonderfully diverse yet it stays engaging throughout.

Winterlight may not grab everybody by the dangly things. Coolness and cynicism may well be insurmountable hurdles for some. (Thier own, not Tims!) But for the warmer hearted of us, this record is impossible to dislike and rather easy to love. For me, it moves effortlessly past previous Maps effort, Turning The Mind. Laptop lullabies these may be, but don’t we need soothing just as much in these modern times as we ever did? Maybe more so. Chroniques Electroniques

Tim Ingham est Winterlight. Cet avatar romantique cache un album qui ne l'est pas moins. Hope Dies Last, premier disque de l'Anglais, est une ode à la mélancolie et aux promesses. L'éminente maison américaine n5md lui offre une entrée par la grande porte. Nul besoin de tergiverser plus longtemps, et pénétrons plutôt sa musique.

Hope Dies Last est lumineux, éblouissant même. Les envolées oniriques, les halos de mélodies moirées et les nuées de vapeur cotonneuse décrivent des états de songes sans cesse illuminés. La musique de Winterlight se situe au confluent de l'ambient, du shoegaze et de l'électronica. Ingham nous mène dans l'endroit où l'espoir s'éteint en dernier. Lyrisme et nostalgie se mêlent à une béatitude planante, les brumes mélodiques se superposent à l'infini, et les rythmiques ont le moelleux de la ouate. Certains percevront peut-être cette dimension poétique comme un trop plein de bons sentiments. Le risque existerait si une patine de tristesse ne recouvrait l'ensemble. J'admettrais toutefois qu'il faut choisir son moment pour plonger (ou se re-plonger) dans Hope Dies Last. Agacement ou amertume peuvent s'en trouver exacerber. Mais là n'est pas le propos, et si cela n'a toujours pas été dit, l'album de Winterlight est d'une beauté éloquente, bouleversante et infiniment délicate. Bloc compact (pourtant foncièrement gazeux) d'émotions ambivalentes et dotées de cette nature brutale des âges encore tendres. L'album s'inspire ainsi de la nostalgie qu'éprouvait Tim Ingham de sa jeunesse, et du temps qu'il a passé à écouter avec passion Radio Moscow et d'anciennes radios du bloc de l'Est. Chose dont atteste l'artwork et les voix radiophoniques de la fin de Zvenya. Les chorus de Becca Riedtmann embrasent l'introductif A Sky Full Of Clouds. Quelle gifle que ce morceau, ancienne réalisation de Winterlight dont les basses et structures rythmiques furent retravaillées par Mike Cadoo. Propulsion d'une force insoupçonnée vers de lointaines novas, les vents balayent la réalité et creusent la distance avec le sol. Plus question de redescendre. Il y a une certaine innocence boc-ienne dans Hopes Dies Last, oscillant le long des nappes ou flirtant avec les doux rebonds du beat. Your Wings Make You Fly, Awake and Sleeping, Natvardsgasterna, Suddenly Something Good et le final ambient et presque sombre I Still Hope sont parmi les plus belles pièces.

Hope Dies Last est une divine oeuvre d'électronica, mêlée de shoegaze brumeux - forcément assez peu doggystyle. Les amoureux de Bitcrush et de Port-royal n'ont pas à hésiter. Les autres, en mal d'élans romantiques, non plus. cokemachineglow

For people who thought shoegaze was just too damn guitar-y, Londoner Tim Ingham attempts the same sound on synthesizers, and largely gets away with it. “But surely this has already been done by loads of unsigned nerds who think they’re being atmospheric,” you cry, “Plus that more famous one from France, M83.” Very true, and luckily Winterlight’s a lot closer to Anthony Gonzalez than he is to the talents of bedroom geniuses. Like M83, he piles on big, emotional excesses, anchored with a twinge of indie rock conscience which prevent them from fading into the wallpaper. This conscience comes across very easily, and the result is an enveloping strain of electronica: music to design postcards to, and music doubtlessly soon to appear on Youtube cut to slideshows of photogenic sunsets. In a nutshell, Winterlight is shoegaze transported to its highest possible peak, where the frontman’s so passionate and deprived of oxygen he can’t even chock out a power chord, and so instead just stands there, zoned, blasting out happiness on his Esonic ESQ-1.

Of course, whether or not you’re party to that happiness depends on your appetite for mist, dreamy beats and mildly understated snare work. If that’s not your cup of tea then run for the hills, because there’s seventy-one minutes of this shit to get through. Possibly the selling point of Hope Dies Last is that it makes those seventy minutes pass swiftly: what potentially could have been a prolonged Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark concert with too much smoke and no Andy McCluskey has been polished and expertly crystallised, every nuance in the melody pushed out. n5MD must hire studio engineers who’ve previously worked in pneumatics. On “Awake and Sleeping,” there’s no percussion, just four cycling synth pads ideal for that handover when the world still looks orange. Ingham works in some splinters of electric guitar, and the piece rolls over you like a wave of heroin. If you like heroin, don’t forget to check out “Zvenya”: it’s unexpectedly moving, and if you sync the crescendo to kick in with your central heating, you can slip merrily onto your bed and think about never getting up. The track’s simple three-note sequence just keeps on giving, and even the DJ samples about Soviet rock music don’t risk breaking the spell.

For those not wishing to slide into a 70-minute coma, however, some good news: Hope Dies Last also packs a secret pop agenda, and actually spends a good deal (i.e. almost half) of its time experimenting with more chirpy textures. Perhaps Ingham foresaw the danger of making one solid tranquiliser, and so spiced it up with a little help from labelmate Mike Cadoo, whose beatwork as Dryft has been imported here to perfection. This is first obvious on “Between Joy,” a scampering, snappy potential single, bouncing and punching non-stop. If that wasn’t a sufficient pick-me-up (and it should be, even on a record as expansive as this), there’s further hi-jinx on “Nattvardsgästerna”: another of those upbeat electronica tracks that uses twelve layers to disguise its two-chord melody, and one brimming with an early Ulrich Schnauss vibe, back before he made billions. The pop sounds here are so continental you’ll be waiting for some soft German lyrics to hush in, but overall it’s a pretty timeless piece, despite a couple of feathery drum pads which refuse to think 2004 ever ended.

On balance, don’t dive into Hope Dies Last expecting drum solos and a 41-gun salute. Read the title again. Hope Dies Last. Only one of those words could be considered excitable. However, if you’re happy stretching out to peaceful machines or enjoy the Future Sound of London with their temper amputated, Winterlight’s debut will give you something. The Christmas atmosphere and half-glitch programming will turn a few people off very quickly, but to those who stick around, there’s enough sweat and detail to keep a toe on reality, and convince you you’re entering into paradise (people who enjoy taking E while watching Edward Scissorhands, you’re going to have a picnic). Its length and over-eggedness won’t chime too well with fans of progression, or fans of not having to write the whole afternoon off if you want to listen to one album, but if you want your blanket, or you’re about to try cave-diving and want something soothing in your ears, you should consider Hope Dies Last. Particularly if you’ve recently seen The Descent. igloomag

Did you enjoy Herrmann & Kleine’s warm and emotive instrumental-electronica back in the early 00?s, especially as featured on Our Noise with Morr Music? Remember how this particular album meshed highly contagious melodies with an instrumental punch bouncing in multiple directions? Now, fast-forward nine years, slow the velocity a few notches, and consider this relative newcomer offering similar (albeit lighthearted) anthems. Mix in a few strands of lightly tapping percussion, torn guitar extracts tied to softened harmonies, and you have Winterlight‘s debut, Hope Dies Last on n5MD.

Spilling instrumental shoegaze and electronic-tinged beauty, this release has a high degree of ebb and flow mirroring life. And while we can’t really know or understand all of the frustrations during our time on this circular cosmic spot, Winterlight manages to unearth a sense of nostalgia that temporarily converts darkness into light, sharpness into haze, and grittiness into serenity. These surreal audio elements skitter along like cottony tones peppering the landscape with sweet and tranquil complexity. Brushed noise and floating ambience sways through the ears as subtle beats and drifting lyrics are exposed to the furthest depths. The entire album delivers featherlight electronics intermixed with a hands-on instrumental flare; this is where Winterlight really sparks. Though these relatively smooth tracks slip away on first rotation, they begin to take magnetic shape the second time around.

Fans of Ulrich Schnauss, Syntaks and Bitcrush (Mike Cadoo contributes bass / drum programing while Becca Riedtmann delivers vocal stretches on “A Sky Full of Clouds”) will not regret submerging their ears in Hope Dies Last‘s musical surroundings.

Hope Dies Last is out now on n5MD textura

A recording very much in the n5MD tradition of emotive electronica, Hope Dies Last is the debut album from Tim Ingham under the Winterlight name. The album is not entirely new, however, as a few of its twelve tracks are revisited versions of pieces that originally appeared in mid-2008 on the Distant Noise release Summer Interlude under Ingham's now retired Lightsway alias. The detail amounts to little more than a technicality, though, as the new collection registers as a fully unified set that blends the radiant shoegaze of Ulrich Schnauss and ethereal splendour of Robin Guthrie. In a representative track such as “Natvardsgästerna,” for example, the air may therefore be thick with Guthrie-styled reverb and ambient atmosphere, but it's also rich with pop melodies of the kind specialized in by Schnauss (there's even a smattering of Slowdive-like shoegaze mixed in to lend the material added intensity and heft). In “Between Joy,” which drinks from the same melodically rich well oft visited by Schnauss, guitars chime in the time-honoured tradition associated with Guthrie, and the rhythms pulsate with barely contained euphoria in a style that can't help but remind listeners of Schnauss's 2005 classic Far Away Trains Passing By.

As beatific as its title suggests, “A Sky Full of Clouds” blossoms rapidly into an uncommon and ultimately grandiose setting, a move helped along by the contributions of Becca Riedtmann, whose vocals boosts the track's ethereal qualities, and Mike Cadoo (aka Bitcrush), who fleshes out an already expansive sound with bass and drum programing. Elsewhere, “Plattenbuten:Palast” buries a laid-back, Schnauss-styled beat pattern under an immense cathedralesque cloud of reverb, while “I Still Hope” closes the album with eight minutes of blinding and beatless ambient. Winterlight's sound is epic, regardless of whether the track in question is shoegaze (“Your Wings Make You Fly”) or a starry-eyed lullaby (“Awake and Sleeping”), and it's also largely uplifting, as even unashamedly positive titles such as, again, “Your Wings Make You Fly” and “Suddenly Something Good” attest. On the downside, there are moments when a few genre cliches arise (such as the sound of waves crashing ashore during “Swept”), the album's a tad overlong at seventy-one minutes, and Hope Dies Last doesn't present an innovative sound so much as reinforce an existing one, but such aspects are easy to overlook when Ingham's well-crafted album offers so many pleasures, melodic and otherwise. High Voltage

I really could try and distinguish individual songs on this, but that'd almost be missing the point. The level of quality and attention to detail doesn't change substantially enough, and the overall coherence of this atmospheric album is such that it's definitely better appreciated as a whole. Broadly speaking, it's in post-rock or shoegaze territory, albeit with the warbling upbeat samples of Adore Smashing Pumpkins and, now I think about it, the synth bass sound of Billy Corgan's solo record, TheFutureEmbrace. The overall effect is somewhat in the manner of a less dark SPC ECO, and as a massive Curve and ECO fan, it's not hard to imagine the degree to which I enjoyed this record.

I'm told that there is a debt owed to Slowdive on this record, and whilst there's no doubt that Winterlight mastermind Tim Ingham has their albums on a shelf somewhere, I think the comparison is something of a red herring. To the casual listener, there's one 'shoegazing sound'; a wall of guitar and the odd melody here and there, but that's a vast oversimplification. There are at least two distinct brands of shoegazing; the first I shall call 'melodic', and the second 'textural'; the reason for Loveless's nigh-universal acclaim should thus be predictable; namely that it's one of the few albums to successfully engage with both playing styles.

The 'textural' style focuses more on arrangements and sound collage, in some ways heavily indebted to early pioneers like Eno and the Cocteaus, though I'd be quick to point out that I'd class the latter as 'melodic'; in any case, this category encompasses Spiritualized, Velocity Girl and Slowdive, as well as more recent bands like Serena Maneesh and Ringo Deathstarr. In the 'melodic' camp, by contrast, you've got Ride, Lush, and more modern bands like Tripwires, Hammock, Engineers or Manchester's own Daniel Land and the Modern Painters.

Like the Painters, or indeed Engineers' Ulrich Schnauss, Winterlight falls firmly into the 'melodic' category, and as such, though it breaks with that category's bent towards strong melody in vocal lines by adopting a mostly instrumental approach, it's reasonably accessible. It's easy in reviewing this kind of music to get tied down in metaphors and descriptions, but there's still some kind of a discursive objective quality discernible in the shoegaze scene, and I'm pleased to report that this record makes the grade. Highly recommended. Autres Directions

Hope Dies Last. Titre idéaliste pour un monde aveugle et sans avenir, odyssée bouche bée lancée par delà les nuages depuis la ville côtière de Plymouth, Angleterre. Si le premier album de Winterlight est une des plus belles surprises de l’année, c’est aussi, sans doute, le meilleur album de Robin Guthrie sans Robin Guthrie depuis la fin des Cocteau Twins. Un condensé parfait de synthétiseurs vaporeux, de lumières réverbères et de guitares cotonneuses. Les spécialistes appelleront ça du shoegazing mâtiné d’électronique. Les plus curieux diront, comme cela a déjà été écrit, qu’Air vient de se mettre au krautrock et les plus paresseux n’hésiteront pas à dire que Slowdive, port-royal, Ulrich Schnauss et Robin Guthrie viennent tout simplement de sortir un disque collectif sous un nom d’emprunt. Le problème, c’est qu’il n’y a personne d’autre dans Winterlight que Tim Ingham et quelques modestes invités de la famille n5MD. A l’inverse du récent premier album de Dreissk paru sur le même label, Hope Dies Last redéfinit, à son propre rythme et sans jamais courber l’échine, les fantômes d’un passé nouvelle vague, idéologique et musical. Rien de ce que produit Winterlight n’est vraiment nouveau et, pourtant, tout lui appartient. Ballet de nuages tranquilles, vagues emportées par la houle, accents pop rêveurs et dépressions climatiques ambient. Cette musique s’ouvre sereine, rayonnante et belle avant de progressivement naviguer vers des contrées plus intimement sombres, personnelles et captivantes. Of All Things, comme accompagné par le groove anesthésiant de Massive Attack, et le final anxiogène d’I Still Hope témoignent ainsi d’une vision plus impressionnante, soudain plus grave et nuancée, de la peinture sonore. On peut y voir l’histoire d’une vie résumée en un peu plus d’une heure. On peut aussi y écouter le meilleur de ce qu’a produit l’Angleterre shoegaze depuis Souvlaki.

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