Conceptually, Pale Spring attempts to reconcile contradictions in the human condition: healing from, and feeling comforted by, depression and generational trauma. Harper Scott writes songs that relate 'intensely personal accounts' and 'the images that haunt my dreams.' DUSK abounds with wounds, breaks and bodies; characters yearn, make love, bare themselves. These songs have a dreamlike quality, existing outside of time; their simultaneous spareness, richness and languor belies the pair's intricate collaboration. 'Songwriting and producing are interconnected processes for me,' Harper Scott says. Often songs incorporate bits of old ones, as on album closer 'Dark,' which revolves around an outtake from their sessions for CYGNUS. Here and throughout the record, Harper Scott elasticizes syllables: 'Give me a space that I can call sacred,' she sings, and just as her harmonies suggest the song's chord progressions, the song suggests such a space.
