Snow Ghosts - A Quiet Ritual

Snow Ghosts have announced the release of their third album, A Quiet Ritual, out May 3rd via Fabric’s Houndstooth label. Centering on the theme of death, the album seeks to process the shock and grief of bereavement and its aftermath, as well as casting back across history and other cultures for their own metaphors and coping strategies. Recorded in a castle in Wiltshire and two years in the making, A Quiet Ritual is written for an ensemble of classical and modern instruments including the Carnyx, an Iron Age Celtic boar-headed horn excavated from a bog in Deskford, Scotland.For the Carnyx, they enlisted the services of John Kenny, one of just a few musicians able to play the instrument and the first to do so in modern times. The mix of instruments is indicative of the idiosyncratic timelessness common to this album and all of their previous works: having had a historical context present on their previous albums, the inclusion of the Carnyx ties the release together, combining sepulchral themes with an instrument commonly used in rituals or as an offering in ancient culture. Snow Ghosts are Ross Tones, Hannah Cartwright and Oliver Knowles. Formed in 2008, their musical interests reside in our own time, the beginning of time and all points between. Channelling the influence of folk music used to summon ancestral spirits, they explore the complex weave of the eternal, love, death and nature through the contemporary mediums of genres spanning electronica, post-rock and heavier sounds to create an immersive, physical ambience.