Biography
Hilary Woods creates hushed nocturnal pieces and textural noise explorations on keyboards as a solo performer, drawing from filmmakers, electronic musicians, and folk singers. Having played bass in the Irish indie rock outfit JJ72 and helped deliver two Top 20 albums in the early 2000s, she stepped away from the industry entirely before resurfacing in 2014 with a more restrained yet harmonically tense approach. Her first full-length solo statement arrived as Colt in 2018; by her third album she had abandoned conventional song forms altogether, issuing the drone-centered dirges of 2023’s Acts of Light, whose elements included electronics, strings, field recordings, and several choirs.
Born in Dublin, Woods grew up surrounded by music, as her parents regularly spun classical, folk, and rock records at home and urged both her and her brother toward instruments; the piano became her primary focus. In the late 1990s, at age eighteen, she joined singer-guitarist Mark Greaney and drummer Fergal Matthews in JJ72 on bass. The band quickly landed a deal with Sony’s Lakota Records imprint and scored U.K. and Irish success with the self-titled 2000 debut and 2002’s I to Sky. After four years of nonstop touring she exited the group—and the music business—in 2002, then started a family the following year.
While raising her daughter she enrolled in college courses that introduced her to filmmakers Wong Kar-wai and Chris Marker, reigniting her creative drive. She began absorbing electronic works by Jon Hopkins and Vincent Gallo, ultimately returning in 2014 with the understated acoustic songs of the EP Night. Resuming live performances, she issued the warmer yet still restrained Heartbox in 2016, which added spacious keyboard layers. That eerie acoustic-electronic atmosphere deepened on Colt, released by Sacred Bones Records in 2018, then expanded further into murky textures and instrumental noise on 2020’s Birthmarks.
Her subsequent record took shape over two years of sessions spanning northwest Spain, Ireland’s west coast, and Dublin. Assembled from gathered field recordings together with electronics, noise, synthesizers, vocals, double bass, viola, and contributions from the Galway City Chamber Choir and the Palestrina Choir, Acts of Light emerged in 2023 as a nine-part fugue of drone-anchored dirges that dispensed with song structure.
Born in Dublin, Woods grew up surrounded by music, as her parents regularly spun classical, folk, and rock records at home and urged both her and her brother toward instruments; the piano became her primary focus. In the late 1990s, at age eighteen, she joined singer-guitarist Mark Greaney and drummer Fergal Matthews in JJ72 on bass. The band quickly landed a deal with Sony’s Lakota Records imprint and scored U.K. and Irish success with the self-titled 2000 debut and 2002’s I to Sky. After four years of nonstop touring she exited the group—and the music business—in 2002, then started a family the following year.
While raising her daughter she enrolled in college courses that introduced her to filmmakers Wong Kar-wai and Chris Marker, reigniting her creative drive. She began absorbing electronic works by Jon Hopkins and Vincent Gallo, ultimately returning in 2014 with the understated acoustic songs of the EP Night. Resuming live performances, she issued the warmer yet still restrained Heartbox in 2016, which added spacious keyboard layers. That eerie acoustic-electronic atmosphere deepened on Colt, released by Sacred Bones Records in 2018, then expanded further into murky textures and instrumental noise on 2020’s Birthmarks.
Her subsequent record took shape over two years of sessions spanning northwest Spain, Ireland’s west coast, and Dublin. Assembled from gathered field recordings together with electronics, noise, synthesizers, vocals, double bass, viola, and contributions from the Galway City Chamber Choir and the Palestrina Choir, Acts of Light emerged in 2023 as a nine-part fugue of drone-anchored dirges that dispensed with song structure.
Albums
Night CRIÚ
2025
Acts of Light
2023
Feral Hymns
2021
Birthmarks
2020
Colt
2018
Heartbox - EP
2016
Night
2014
Singles
