July Skies - Where the Days Go

by Chris Jones

published: 7 / 11 / 2006

Label: Make Mine Music
Format: CD

intro

Sublime and delicately evocative post rock on third album from July Skies, the project of London-based musician Anthony Harding

Fields uncut. Tarmac cracked and uneven, the victim of seasons come and gone. Haunted by history. Abandoned by time. Beautifully desolate. The stories contained therein. Hidden. Sensed more than told. The grass sways, moved by the ghosts of airplanes once powerful, fierce, majestic. Some returned in triumph. Others never saw these airstrips again. Blips on the radar faded. Quiet. Calm. Weightless. Men with a heavy burden. Suspended in mid air. The buildings bend down. Once they supported a nation. A continent. An ideal. Their purpose served. Resting now. Peaceful. Delicate. Left untouched all this time. Out of respect. A lone tower in the distance. Windows cracked. Paint swept away by wind and rain. Radios silent for decades, their echoes lost to the ether. Listen... While the songs collected on this album aren't all a direct result of spending time in the now abandoned airstrips of England (as was the case on July Skies' previous record 'The English Cold'), I can't help but be filled with images of those fields when listening to this album. July Skies create a delicate sparseness that can easily be lost to the noises of everyday life, but that can just as easily take you somewhere far away from everyday life. It seems fitting that some of these songs were recorded in a church, as they almost demand a hushed reverence. A perfect album for letting time float by while lying down on the floor with headphones on. Everyday life can wait.

Track Listing:-

1 Coastal Stations (Radio WZBC Session)
2 Swallows and Swifts (Radio WZBC Session)
3 Countryside of 1939 (Radio WZBC Session)
4 Learning With Mother (Radio WZBC Session)
5 The Softest Kisses (At The Height Of Summer 7" Version)
6 The Days We Played
7 Southern Orchards (At The Height Of Summer 7" Version)
8 Childhood Illustrator
9 The Map That Came to Life
10 Berkswell
11 It's Late in the Day for Love
12 Wiltshire Days and Skies
13 August Country Fires (Epic45 Reworking)
14 Raf Saxa Vord
15 Autumn Fires
16 Waiting to Land (Epic45 Reworking)
17 Air to Ground At Manorbier
18 You Take Me Through the Day
19 Coastal Stations (Live At the ICA 02.02.02)

interviews

Interview (2006)

In all of its recordings ambient act July Skies, the project of Antony Harding has demonstrated a a deep aching longing and sad nostalgia for the past of the last century. With July Skies' fourth album 'The Weather Clock' due out in the spring, John Clarkson talks to Antony Harding abouthis group

digital downloads

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reviews

The Weather Clock (2008)

Reverent and thoughtful largely instrumental fourth album from July Skies, the project of Antony Harding, which with evocative tenderness displays a deep longing for the past

The English Cold (2005)