Truly beautiful new LP, "The Circle Of Days", from UK sound/drone artist Andrew Chalk on his own Faraway Press imprint. Recorded in 2003-06 and created with field recordings, keyboards, guitar, bass guitar, and slide-guitar, "The Circle Of Days" includes a return for Chalk to his long-term collaboration with Daisuke Suzuki (Ghosts On Water, Lost Shadow, Siren Records et al), who features on five of the LP's 14 (relatively short) pieces. The field recordings, mostly captured from everyday home/community life, blend with beautiful fragments of minimalist keyboard runs and droning string tones that reach out, rise-up, and resonate to stunning effect, conveying celestial-like imagery of, say, light from another world shimmering in the dark of our own fog-blurred night. The sounds unfold, subliminally freezing/interrupting time, before fading into voids that sometimes leave a peculiar and wondrous sense of longing. Whilst the field recordings feel grounded in the real world, the instruments' rich sounds seem like they arrived from the ether of far-away, deep inside Chalk's expansive artistic vision. A magical and captivating piece of work, just like how shooting stars grip our gaze in wonder. Released on Chalk's Faraway Press imprint in an edition of 325 copies. Pressed on super-sounding black vinyl, mastered by Denis Blackham and housed in a sleeve featuring a reproduction of a pencil sketch by the artist himself, with layout design by Jos Moers. (infinite Limits)