Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Make hay whilst the Sun shines, or take the inspiration of the view that you behold when the clouds have been bested, when the darkened skies of misfortune and ill ease have been banished, and allow the healthy benefits of a clear mind to take you to a place that you might have sighted on occasion, but never been permitted to experience, that of peace, of tranquil repose, and the cease-fire of all hostilities imposed by others.

To honour the Sun does not mean spending the day completely immersed in its rays, one must seek to have balance where joy and melancholy detachment are concerned, but to have the chance to bathe for a while and take in splendour can be the highlight of the day, and so it is to the Sun created by South California folk singer songwriter Gloria Taylor that has the passion to make your skin feel lighter and blessed, and your heart beat with a sense of indulgent wish fulfilment.

Whatever we focus on to reconcile our mood with the pain of Time is to hold and help restore equally, and as the tracks from Ms. Taylor’s E.P. Sun sweep overt the listener as though they are settled on a beach with the great warmth of an ocean lapping close to their feet, so the great sense of restorative of illumination comes to dispel bad karma and ill effects of life.

Across the songs 100 Different Ways, Luna, You Know, Sweetness Cries, and the eponymous E.P. title track, Sun, Gloria Taylor explores deeper into the human experience with sound as a resonating healing process and follows up 2018’s album Go For The Moon with a demeanour of even-tempered peace in her growing musical armoury.

To witness a sun unobscured by clouds is a defining moment that is worth celebrating, it requires the understanding of making the most of such a natural event for the longest time possible, of hearing song where once there was incessant driving rain, of feeling the essence of life where there could have once been a void shrouded in shadow.

Gloria Taylor’s Sun is a peace restored, a world without shadow, and it is worth the illumination you receive in kind.

Ian D. Hall