Budynės. Sonata gęstančiai šviesai (The Wake. Sonata for the dying light) is an album/mourning ritual. I am mourning for those that are now being lost. It is a chant for all those that speak the languages we’ve never heard and those we have forgotten, all those that are beyond our field of vision: above, beneath, around us, all those that make the world we’ve come into, a habitable place it is.

This sonata is born out of grief in the ecosystem that is transforming in a terrifying way in front of our eyes: the skies emptying out, the ocean dying away, the bird-songs dissolving in a hum of man-made machines. This sound-piece was a result of my bigger research in grief and grieving and ecological disaster. I also became an outlet to my personal grief after a painful loss earlier in 2020.

The composition has been in a (mental) process for nearly two years: from the initial writings, to recordings of “Žemaičių kalvos” – “Hills of Samogitia” (according to the tradition of Western Lithuania – a three hour chant, meant to guide the dear departed towards the other side and create a space for mourning for those that stay), to composing, performing and recording it. Over that period, my field recordings show, natural world around me grew ever more silent, while the anthropogenic noise – ever louder.

This digital album is distributed free of charge. Would you decide you want to pay for it, please note that any sum that will reach the authoress after Bandcamp and Paypal fees will be donated to an old growth forest protection charity Sengirės fondas.

Alternatively, you are invited to donate to an environmental or climate-justice charity of your choice and drop me a note to get your code to download this.