Winterlight - Hope Die Last (2011)

Genre : Ambient, Electronica, Shoegaze, from UK
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Tracklist :

1. A Sky Full of Clouds
2. Between Joy
3. Your Wings Make You Fly
4. Awake and Sleeping
5. Suddenly Something Good
6. Nattvardsgästerna
7. Swept
8. Plattenbauten: Palast
9. Zvenya
10. Line of Flight
11. Of All the Things
12. I Still Hope

Winterlight combine shoegaze, ambient and electronic influences to make melodic ‘post-pop’ instrumentals.

Growing up in the Thames Valley in the UK, Tim Ingham stood shoulder to shoulder with the likes of Slowdive at local gigs but his own musical endeavours didn't get off the ground until he found he could use a laptop late at night once his family had retired for the night to create his own electronic version of the kind of warm, hazy sounds that he had gravitated to since his youth.

Joined live by additional member Jamie, guitars and keyboards melt together in a haze of delay, distortion and reverb soaked melodies which have been described as “…like Air playing krautrock”.

"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.