There's a low-slung hum that sits in the bellies of Rebecca Gates and the Consortium songs. It rests there like a bear, snoring off the winter. It's the sound of a fan swirling overhead, as the summer locusts badger the night trees, pressing their agendas. It's a sound that you feel before you hear. It slips in, under the bottom of the door, like a spirit. There's a play to work into the nights, to burrow into them, to sleep in the folds, to trace along their contours.
Gates seduces nights with ease. She sings of being out in them, of messing with them, of getting to know them as intimately as possible. She sings confidently of their workings and of being unafraid of what they might turn up. She fishes into them, sitting there on the dock, patient and as invisible as can be. She locks into the feel of the line and what could be out there lurking - or what could essentially be a bunch of emptiness.
The potential thrill of the uncertainty stalks these songs, as the characters try their hands at the murky dawns and dusks, hoping to be perked when something comes from below the depths or from out of a blind spot. Gates sings, "You turn up again, so radiant," the value of the shock, of the unexpected return a beautiful slip-up.