There is a warm solemnity to Pools of Light, like participating in a communal prayer, where hopes are a dream to ward off death, an ultimate end that is nonetheless a welcome fact of life. Inasmuch, at least, as it is the thought of ceasing to be what brings us all together – in the liner notes, Jessica Moss beautifully exclaims “FEELING LOVE IN A MELTING WORLD”. Just like her work as part of the apocalyptically-inclined A Silver Mt. Zion, this album is an interplay of hope for the hopeless and hopelessness for the hopeful, an emotional process in which the sharing of an all-encompassing pain is the relief that provides a basis to keep dreaming, to integrally act in the name of a truthful empathy that wants not to deny suffering but to heal it in communion.

The album is divided into two sections, “Entire Populations” and…