Hilary Woods has always thrived in the shadows, but with “Endgames,” the first glimpse of her forthcoming album Night CRIÚ (out October 31 via Sacred Bones), she steps forward with a sharpened presence. After two sprawling instrumental records, Woods pivots back to song craft, anchoring her latest work around the quiet power of her voice. The result is nothing short of arresting.
The single is ghostly but never fragile. Woods builds it from layered vocal harmonies that feel both intimate and spectral, weaving lyrics that move like a spell, less like storytelling and more of an invocation. There’s a physicality to it, as if each phrase is a way of reinhabiting the body, scraping away old scars and dragging the unconscious into the light. The sound is restrained, but it glows with tension, every note pressing against silence like it might break.
The accompanying self-made video deepens the sense of haunted beauty. Splicing together 16mm and Super 8 film she processed by hand in her darkroom, Woods collages home movies, archive fragments, and her own delicate drawings scratched onto celluloid – listen/watch below. The effect is raw and deeply personal, as though memory itself were flickering on screen, intimate bonds, half-forgotten faces, and the tender weight of time.
If Woods’ previous work drifted like a dream, Endgames feels like the moment of waking, the fragments snapping into place. It’s a song about reclaiming what was buried, about pulling lost selves back into the fold. As a lead into Night CRIÚ, it promises a record that will resist easy categorisation. But then all of her work is this way, mixing nocturnal ceremonies a with fractured glowing defiance.
Hilary Woods has never sounded so assured, so deliberate. “Endgames” is a return to her voice as instrument and also a reminder of its spellbinding power.
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