As I write this article I am in Iceland at a music festival, experiencing the strange effects of daylight throughout the waking hours, even at 2:30 a.m., when I finally fell into an exhausted slumber earlier this morning.

Iceland is just a few degrees south of the Arctic Circle, that imaginary line around the Earth that marks the latitude above which the sun does not set on the summer solstice and does not rise on the winter solstice. The summer solstice arrives on June 21st, one week from today.

The rhythms of the body rebel at so much light, but there is at least a temporary remedy for the disorientation, a balance to be found as the mind is seduced into deepest darkness through the sound of “Illusions“, the song from the debut album by Thorns of Grief that’s been devouring the light around me this morning. Continue reading »