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Brightly Shone the Moon Album by Laura Cannell

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BRIGHTLY SHONE THE MOON is the 13th solo album from the UK Composer/Performer and Improviser Laura Cannell. Growing up in the marshes in rural Norfolk there is a natural leaning towards the stark landscape and nostalgia of winter’s past. In the village she grew up in carols were sung in the methodist chapel, the church, the village hall and outside people’s doors. Later on, around the piano with her sister playing the right hand and Laura on the left, the tunes were always there, but maybe not the words. This album takes some essence from the past but is firmly rooted in the present. These songs are still embedded in the season and the rural countryside but they have become their own tradition, they belong to each of us if we want them.

Christmas melodies disappear into densely packed woodland copses where half remembered carols are played on the fiddle and the merry organ, but none are what they seem. Brightly Shone the Moon is alternative Christmas music for those who love and mourn in a season where darkness is everywhere. A time when the winter sun is shy, but the moon lights our nights and encourages our strange songs, traditions and hopes for the unfurling of a new and better year.

The 9 tracks on Brightly Shone the Moon were recorded in Laura’s home studio, with duo partner André Bosman guesting on tracks 2, 7 and 8 on synths, and sampling Laura’s violin.

“The sound of ancient carols drift through a deep green winter forest. Branches are heavy with snow. Just out of sight is the sound of a strange rural village band processing over the crunchy pebbles of the churchyard and into the medieval church.

Violins and pipe organs glitch and echo, as half remembered melodies sweep towards you on a bluster of icy wind. Traces of familiar festive songs flicker around you, almost cosy but they are distant as you stand, boots in deep snow, alone.

The moon shines brightly as twinkling ice crystals land silently, softly, on your woollen sleeve. It is that time again, where joy and heartache try to exist together. Traditions come in and out of focus as the winter leaves its mark.”
Laura Cannell October 2025

DREAMLORE – by Laura Cannell – A Year of Lore Series 2

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Following on from Laura Cannell’s ‘Year of Lore’ (January to December 2024), the monthly release series returns for part 2, as Cannell takes a deep dive into new emotional landscapes. 

Series 2 begins with DREAMLORE where, following bouts of insomnia, Laura wanted to capture the feelings of half remembered dreams and create music that would help her to conjure sleep. The bow is pulled across the violin strings, catching, 2, 3 and 4 strings at once. Breathing. Slowly. The sound is pushed and pulled in waves of half wakefulness. A dark blue sky is glimmering with the promise of dawn in the east.

The 3 tracks on DREAMLORE are semi-improvised and were recorded in single takes. Cannell plays octave and regular pitch violins and uses the overbow technique that creates an acoustic sound more than that of one player, a sound that she has become known for. There are no overdubs, no layers, just raw and evocative solo violin playing with a polyphonic twist.

“With A Year Of Lore, Laura Cannell has reinforced her reputation as a master storyteller in sound, capable of rendering instrumental narratives so true to the spirit of the folkloric themes and traditions that birthed them as to almost be conjurings. What a treasure it is to have these songs in the world! Whenever they play, the veil will seem thin. While they play, there will always be the feeling of magic on the air.”
THE QUIETUS REVIEW of A Year of Lore (Dec 2024)

The Visible Light of Other Worlds – Album by Laura Cannell

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THE VISIBLE LIGHT OF OTHER WORLDS is the 12th solo album from the UK based Composer, Performer and Improviser Laura Cannell. Recently hailed as “The Radical Neo-medieval Musician Laura Cannell” by The Guardian. Her latest album evokes a strange new world between renaissance consort music, neo-classical & ambient music.

This is the sound of fog in a canyon light years from earth, the tempestuous flames of the sun’s surface, the imagined movement of sand in fields of dark dunes, the hurricane spirals of uninhabitable worlds. It is the residue and archived energy of long gone forests, the restless oceans and curving rift valleys of unknown lands in the untouchable reaches of the universe.

Laura Cannell’s 12th album is for an imagined soundtrack to the landscape of worlds we will never touch. 

In The Visible Light of Other Worlds Laura leans into the deep melancholic sound of her octave violin – strung with deep broad strings, giving her music a slightly otherworldly ‘not quite a cello’ sound. Alongside the octave violin she brings in bass recorder and overbowed violin, layering instruments and evoking a strange ensemble somewhere between renaissance consorts and string quartets. Every part is played by Laura.

Over the past ten years Laura Cannell’s music has become synonymous with recognisable landscapes, emotional sonic depictions of place, fragments of medieval music, folklore and of a kind of abstract storytelling. This album is about connecting with something other worldly and tapping into purely imagined lands. The 11 tracks were written and recorded in an intimate home studio setting – inspired by space and planetary images from NASA. The album is a deep inner world responding and sending signals to the furthest reaches. 

“The Visible Light of Other Worlds – Album liner notes – Laura Cannell August 2025

“It never stays the same. We never stay the same. When I look into the dark skies sometimes I hear music from distant landscapes that I will never see. It is music that I haven’t yet written, but somehow exists within. How is the earth’s edge only 62 vertical miles from here? Every time there is a clear sky we see other worlds, I can hear them as I look past the edges. I can sense a soundscape for imagined lands, an invisible film”. 

THE VISIBLE LIGHT OF OTHER WORLDS by Laura Cannell