Happy 15th Anniversary to Auburn Lull’s third studio album Begin Civil Twilight, originally released March 24, 2008.
It’s no secret that throughout my life, Disintegration has provided lasting comfort. When at my most defeated, I instinctually turn to The Cure’s eighth album and let it cradle me through the darkness.
But, in 2020, as lockdown wore on, with night bleeding into day, my heart and brain dulling into repeating blankness, I called on reinforcements I didn’t even realize I had. And, one by one, they dutifully rose from years-long latency and bequeathed much-needed calmness.
I’d been a fan of Michigan-based quartet Auburn Lull since their 1999 debut Alone I Admire and found their sophomore effort Cast from the Platform (2004) even more enthralling. But it was their third LP Begin Civil Twilight (2008) that had sunk in, in some deeper, indelible way, sustaining me through many a New York City night, its soothing space-rock soundscapes escorting my Saturn-return-strewn psyche into daybreak.
From the quiet magnificence of opening track “Light Through the Canopy” to its string-kissed farewell “Hidden3,” Begin Civil Twilight has always whirled in its own world of pedal-washed beauty. In 2020, its transportive qualities proved essential.
A city-dweller soldiering on in solitude, I’d find myself drifting into the nothingness, suddenly aware it was 3:30am, with no idea where the time had gone. In my waning witching-hour wisdom, I’d fuzzily wonder: How long had I been there? What had I been thinking about? Where had my mind been?
Sure, I’d taken solace in the owl that, in my nine years of residing at the same San Francisco location, I’d never detected, but now hooted hungrily—and predictably—from afar. I’d even become chummy with the wind. Ripples of delight fluttered through me when I’d hear the rustle of leaves by my window or discern the slightest breeze. On the days it was still, I felt the sting of loneliness acutely. My only friend and visitor was gone.
Listen to the Album:
Amid this perpetual oblivion, Begin Civil Twilight clasped me in its woolly reverb arms, pulling me in close with its affecting phantasmic presence, prompting restorative tears, and demonstrating yet again that—in the vein of Sigur Rós and Low—colder climates coax the most radiant waves of music.
At once intimate and ethereal, and as the album title suggests, Begin Civil Twilight enlivens the liminal spaces of the mind, conferring all the ambient complexity that comes with transition. And yet, it’s punctuated by towering, shimmery bursts of rapture like “Broken Heroes,” “November’s Long Shadows,” and my all-time favorite, “Arc of an Outsider,” which flit just on the edge of consciousness—almost close enough to touch. Illuminating like mini denouements in this hazy headspace, they materialize so naturally and inevitably, it’s hard to believe they once never were.
In a 2008 interview, guitarist Jason Kolb remarks, “There are also weird rare ‘immaculate conception’ moments where a song just happens…like almost out of thin air. ‘Arc of an Outsider’ from the new record is one of those.”
Carrying me away from both quotidian conflicts and more esoteric fears, Auburn Lull have been a trusted nocturnal companion for more than two decades. I truly don’t know how I’d have survived lockdown without them. They also remind me that despite tendencies to nest in negativity, my mind continues to afford me one life-affirming gift: a rarely failing ability to fully relinquish to music.
LISTEN: