Dear Light - Delight

If you think that Dear Light would be just the opening line for a correspondence with Martin Callingham later on the bill at the Betsey Trotwood (19/02/2015) then you would be wrong. This duo headed by Philip Collings gave us a delightful and magical set of 5 tunes that could have run for many more pages.

Philip Collings

Like a good letter this was a personal narrative from Collings with seesaw stories and a healthy amount of navel gazing (for who wants to read a letter that doesn't describe the author and how they feel). These Dear Light words and thoughts are made of the sticky toffee kind that eyes and ears want to chew upon. In fact their residue got temptingly stuck in the molars of my mind, where they have remained ever since.

Dear Light have recorded 4 albums to date, 'Dear Light' (2010), 'Sternenfall' (2011), 'The Observer' (2011) and 'Shepherd Moon' (2012). There is an epic album in production entitled 'Broken Hymns'. On this night at the Betsey Trotwood bassist Andy Smith added his colour to Philip Collings' guitar, vocals and keyboard palette.

 



Andy Smith

The songs were a journey of nostalgia and dreamy revelation for this listener. You illustrate my dreams featured Colling's on a slow organ journey, it was sleepy (understandably) and beautiful, like watching scudding clouds move across the horizon. Time dawdled in the Betsey as we all listened, the sandwich corners of our collective hearts curled just a little in the heat from the song's warming sun.

 

The colour that emanated from Sternenfall was equally technicolor and saturated with such an orange glow it burnt a sunspot the size of a Spacehopper in my imagination. It felt like magic.. Like watching the toes wiggling on a sunbather while all the rest remained still as a cadaver.

 

AL.