'Only In The Dark' is a 50-minute musical work in eight movements for cello and electronics grown out of the composers’ experiences as neurodiverse individuals and their shared journeys around understanding their own histories and neurologies. Blythe instigated this collaboration as a way to sustain herself through and heal from a particularly dark depression and the collective work is motivated by the duo’s respective sensory sensitivities, a desire to honor and affirm connections with their bodies and emotions, and by a desire for creative community.

The album begins with ‘Within an invisible light,’ an impactful opening piece which blooms out of the rich, lower register of the cello. A balance is struck early in the piece between open chords ringing out with great strength and fragile harmonics which illuminate like flashes of embers. Blythe’s virtuosic performance pushes the piece forward through the heart of the piece, and towards the vivid clouds of reverb which end the piece. A music video by Phong Tran accompanies the piece and is available as part of the limited edition ‘sensory kit’, curated and designed by Blythe, containing tactile and otherwise sensuous items that correspond to individual movements and sonic trajectories within the work and that can enhance, modulate, or de-escalate the listener’s experience according to their own particular neurological preferences and curiosities. The kit includes commissioned items such as an eye mask designed by Keia Kato, ear plugs, animated visuals by Phong Tran, poetry by Juniper Gabrielle Kramer, custom perfume by Olfactory NYC, a telescoping kaleidoscope by Mark Tickle, and mask fabrication and artwork by Blythe.

Only in the Dark will be released on Vinyl, CD and as an extended Digital release. The work’s next two movements ‘Swivel’ and ‘Flowerpot’ can be heard on the extended digital version of the album. ‘Swivel’ begins in a hazy cloud of reverb giving way to a melody which, each note feeling more laborious than the last, slowly plods along. The cello slowly finds its voice, becoming more powerful and pronounced with each phrase. ‘Flower Pot’ puts texture on full display. Intensely tactile, the opening tapping and creaking of the fingerboard grows. It loops back on itself in a hypnotic manner morphing into an expressive and haunting texture, like sirens whaling. Throughout the project the prolonged distortion of an idea transforms into something beautiful. No gesture or phrase stays the same throughout signaling the inevitability of change and how the music reflects an inherent flow.

‘On fire, quietly’ is the lead single from the album. Blythe’s ferocious arpeggios are surrounded by a backdrop of heavenly, glowing electronics which lift the piece out of the ashes and grit into ‘The way they wept’. Sorrow is felt in the lonely, airy tones the begin this movement before falling into a steady rhythmic and chordal ocean. Throughout the album, the silences and quieter moments often speak louder than the music itself. While some gestures require time to fall, cry or echo, others ask for even more silence, a break for the ears and for the fibers within.

‘Aurora’ brings an energetic reprieve from the cacophonic ending of ‘The Way They Wept’. Cello lines shoot upwards like bright beams supported by their percussive foundation. ‘Tenderly, with gold’ falls back into the delicate air of the cello’s upper register revealing arguably the most lyrical and emotionally exposed moment of the album.

The emotional impetus for the album is intense, but the meditative treatment of the musical material seeks moments of equilibrium, calm, and beauty within and beyond these intense emotional states. In that process, colors and moods shift slowly, like watching the light change on a landscape during a sunrise.

This is particularly notable in the album’s title track and final movement on the album, ‘Only in the Dark’. In this finale, the music very gradually shifts figuration, and harmony over the course of 10-minutes from the lowest register of the instrument to the highest, from dark into light. The width of the track expands to brilliant extremes with the quivering high register remaining as the album comes to a close. We witness a transformation of expressions of grief and loss into a requiem of hope. Only In The Dark is by turns tender, psychedelic, and haunting, reflecting a deep well of emotion.

Only in the Dark was recorded and mixed by three-time Grammy-nominated audio engineer and producer Mike Tierney and was made possible by a grant from the American Composers Forum, with funds provided by the Jerome Foundation, and by a grant from the Café Royal Cultural Foundation.

"Only in the Dark" releases July 11, 2025.