With the release all done, time for a bit of a look back on what has happened in the last couple of days!
First, you can of course listen to the album on your favorite streaming sites such as Spotify or you can get the extra optional short story and back cover image (just like all the goodies you used to get with physical LPs!) all while truly supporting me by purchasing on Bandcamp.
And what are people saying about it? Let’s start with Steve Sheppard from One World Music Radio (read the full review, or better yet, listen to it with a few tracks thrown in for good measure!)
“The Shadow Behind the Sun by Cu-Sithe has to be the most original album I have heard this year in any genre without doubt. There is so much to enjoy and like about this release, the performance and production quality is perfect, each track artistically creates its narrative from start to finish without ever being too long or too short, and the whole album itself is a tale from beginning to end, so much so, that you really will never want to miss a single second of its brilliance.”
“…one of the most amazingly powerful offerings on the album in The Eye at the Heart. Once more the keyboards and electric guitar magic of Cu Sithe work their spell wonderfully, creating for us a moving opus of colour through music, and the resultant piece is like mixing Oldfield with Floyd,..”
“Timestream continues the irrepressible pace, and now the mixture of prog, new age and EM is complete within its musical construct. This is one amazing offering without doubt, and a really stand out piece off the release; the symbiotic partnership of electronics, guitar and keyboards is something to really enjoy here.”
Then we’ll follow up with the review from BT Fasmer of the New Age Music Guide (read in full):
“…worldbuilding seems to be its defining quality. It is a breathtakingly beautiful, complex, and larger-than-life album. The only limit is your imagination.“
“Through a Sea of Stars is a delightful, velvety piece with piano and electric guitar. The best part is what I believe is the hardest to make, the atmosphere. It is otherworldly, yet without that ambient, spacey coldness. No, it is warm, positive, and upbeat.”
“One of the finest pieces on the album is The Depths. The ambient synths and the playful electric guitar are mesmerizing. The hint of Pink Floyd is amazing. Closer to the New Age music scene, fans of Bjørn Lynne, Red Heat, or Erik Scott will very much enjoy the music of Cu Sithe.”
“There is no doubt that The Shadow Behind the Sun is inspired by Mike Oldfield’s “The Songs of Distant Earth” (1994) – and The Eye of the Heart reminds me of “The Shining Ones” and similar TSODE pieces. It is a statement of Tom Grimes’s abilities to create interesting soundscapes.”
Returning to One World Music Radio, I had the pleasure of giving them an interview about “The Shadow Behind the Sun” and my music in general, a great way to get to know more about me!
In fact, you”ll find a whole page of shows relating to the release there, if you want to spoil yourself and listen to them all at once!
Don’t forget that I’d love to hear your views on this album, or any of my music, so do get in touch!
So what’s next? Well, I want to make a few more space-themed videos for a couple more pieces from the album, to go out on YouTube. I’ve also been planning for a while to do a video about my recently acquired PRS 35th Anniversary Custom 24, so I will be looking to finish recording that and then onto the editing.
Then I have a suite of 4 songs to start work on, inspired by a set of four images from Airyll. I don’t want to give too much away, so here is a reeeeeally tiny peek at all 4 images:
As you can tell from the images, these will move away from being quite so electronic and spacey and will feature more traditional instrument sounds (I have a great soundset of Uilleann pipes I want to make use of, already set aside for the castle image!)
As yet musically nothing has been started, but I plan on releasing these one at a time, with the full size versions of each image to go with them, until we have the suite of four complete! This means no waiting for another year til the next album 🙂
All the best!
Tom (Cu Sithe)