Into Night

“Into Night” is the oceanic heart of New Wilderness Gospel. Musically, it weaves together many of the diverse tones and textures that define the album; lyrically, it captures a pivotal moment of transformation in the album’s narrative arc. 

Written in our mountain cabin in Northern California during a series of severe and unrelenting storms, the piece attempts to capture the uncanny blurring and blending of inner and outer landscapes that can occur during periods of prolonged absence from anthropocentric environments. In this world, the trees sway madly, their branches wave and scrape and scratch wildly against the thick hide of the night sky; it feels as though they’d tear the moon down for company if they could. Then the static of the storm and the howls of the wind slowly coagulate into music. Into a message. And the whiskey in your glass conspires with the torrential rain to wash away the illusion of chronological time. 

Here, St. John’s “dark night of the soul” opens up to an even older, wilder darkness. And in this darkness, a pure, sparkling moment of presence. God is there. And the dead are alive again. And the night reveals its hidden face as mercy, as the possibility of redemption. Or so the old mountain stories would have it—but who knows how reliable those storytellers are? They certainly spend too much time alone in the deep woods to be trusted!

lyrics

INTO NIGHT
As the storms stagger in
As the storms stagger in
Far beyond the power lines
Where the darkness shines,
Rises up from that valley
And snakes around the pines
(Where the darkness shines)

As the storms stagger in
As the storms stagger in
Far beyond the power lines
Where the darkness shines,
Rises up from that valley
And snakes around the pines
(Where the darkness shines)

As the storms stagger in
I hear voices
In the howling winds
The dark is an ocean
There's no land in sight tonight
But I say
Let these voices come
Their heavy haunted hum
Will drown the sound
Of my wooden tongue
A second skin vision
Taken not given
My flesh is broken
My body, token
Eaten by the night
Haunted by the light

I'm a burning home

She
Farthest star from me
Close in my heart
Her light in my dark

She
Farthest star from me
Close in my heart
Her light in my dark

And I am breathing in the water
And I am breathing in the night
Blur together, blur forever
Night noise cool gray grain into white

My body is a bed of time
My body is a church of memory
My body is a marked memorial
Sending sparks
Into the dark
​

credits

from New Wilderness Gospel, track releases May 2, 2025
2024, 2024 Auerbach Tonträger / Prophecy Productions

license

all rights reserved