by Thrin Vianale (@windedfl)
Eva Louise Goodman, the songwriter behind the moniker Nighttime, crafts folk music with a lush eeriness that mirrors the atmosphere in which it was created. Her debut album Hand in the Dark is the result of a two year long recording endeavor, in a small Vermont town from which the artist hails.
The opening track “Strawberry Moon” establishes the pensive, ghostly tone that persists throughout the ten track album. The fullness of her reverbed out vocals swallows everything around it, taking on an almost Victorian gothic quality in its exquisite presentation. Goodman takes the traditional elements of folk music and nuances them with her shifting moods, chorus-like vocals, and the dream-like content of her lyrics.
“Stone Fruit” is a track to be played on a grey winter morning when you’re by yourself with black coffee- and need to exorcise some serious emotional demons. Layered violins and a deep web of vocal harmonies carry Goodman’s main melody into the ethereal plane, as she repeats, “Lost, it was lost, it was lost.” Hand in the Dark is itself an invitation to get lost, as the album progresses in its controlled, brooding cadence; it never rushes but is refreshingly patient, contemplative, and intricate.