Cosmic Lark

Evocative soundscapes and musical alchemy

In October of 2023, as Lyrella, I began creating a concept for an album and additional art. As a result, Tony Lowe and I started cowriting and recording Cosmic Lark, an instrumental album inspired by a love of musical storytelling and evocative soundscapes. The compositions utilised rhythms, sounds, moods, and instruments worked into a musical framework as each song had an outline allowing for improvisation to achieve a specific outcome. Evolving into a melodic journey - a soundtrack of feeling, atmosphere and rhythm, of soulful guitar and intense keyboards, we paired the physical release with art, reflecting metamorphosis. The art, ‘Variations of a Tulip’ involves one image created for each composition with eight flower transformations. Lyrella Links

Beginning with ‘Rhythm and Muse’ we enter the Colorado River Canyon, gliding downstream on the powerful current surrounded by the wild, primal, red rock mystery of the Northern Arizona desert. Moving through the eight compositions we encounter various sonic moods and landscapes, open to interpretation by the listener.

"“Cosmic Lark is an ingenious and fascinating cascade of musical imagination which frolics on the shores of jovial creativity and delights in the symphonic treasures it playfully presents to the listener. It is the richest of orchestral feasts, fashioned with deeply nuanced finesse and served with inventive elegance. From start to finish, it is utterly spellbinding.” -Rob Fisher – The Progressive Aspect – Full Review

“A superb album of instrumental prog from the ESP Project/Sunn Creative stable” - Shaun Geraghty - The Prog Mill

"Lyrella is Tony Lowe and Cheryl Stringall and 'Cosmic Lark' is their uplifting new album. Lowe's guitars and keyboards create widescreen soundscapes and captivating melodies, familiar to all ESP-Project watchers, and Stringall brightens up the programmed rhythms with added percussion. Like all Sunn Creative releases, the packaging is gorgeous and the limited-edition CD comes with additional original artwork by Stringall, tying in with the moods conjured by the album's 8 tracks" – Prog Blog

"I love this album" -Peter Coyle

“… this new 2025 ‘entrancing’ stunner” – ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - Full Review - Prog Rogue

“The beautiful Lyrella album has such great atmospheres, it’s almost cinematic! The positive vibe of the album is great and the album artwork as well as the bonus cards are beautiful.” -Aad

“Cosmic Lark is amazing! It just arrived to me today on the US west coast. I am loving it!” -Wes

“The cover and gift card art is gorgeous - completely in tune with the hypnotic, swirling, pulsating rhythms and melodies of the album. Fantastic all round.” -Indie

“I love this album, it is 'heart and soul' infectious and as innovative as heck. I love its driving, emotive feel and grooves, haunting hooks and otherworldly soundscapes - an enchanting album.” -Alison

“Stunning piece of work” -Cheryl Griffith

“I love this album!” -Uwe D’rose

"It’s a gorgeous album." -Rick Peuser

Creating music involves a form of alchemy, requiring work, insight, and often many hours to obtain a result that sounds right. I prefer the old school way of immersing in art and music, so we don’t use AI to forge a painting or song. Writing music often involves seasoned composers and musicians, some who have spent years honing their talents, contributing personal interpretation to specific parts. Yes, we may use samples and digital instrument tools, but these are played by us, not through a command line. For me, music requires human feeling and some physical, tactile engagement, and because of this sometimes the outcome is unexpected, but that’s the beauty of it. The injection of human emotions into a complex process which becomes more than the sum of the parts. Humans are raw, alive, compared to computers, and this contributes to the overall wonder of the outcome. A beautiful, mysterious process.

“The art life is a great life … and it’s always an experiment” - David Lynch

Immense gratitude to Tony Lowe who interpreted, improvised, composed and produced with empathic insight, bringing the music to fruition in a way I never could.

Cosmic Lark is available on Bandcamp with packages that include my original art in the form of frameable, gift cards, or not, whatever is preferred. Lyrella Links

Cosmic Lark - Art by Cheryl Stringall

Cosmic Lark is dedicated to the memory of Pamela Stringall and Patty Harden, whose enthusiasm for life, courage, and strength of spirit influenced the compositions. They both passed during its creation and are greatly missed.