Artist and song tender Alexandra "ahlay" Blakely has written an album entirely dedicated to grief. Written in the community singing tradition, the intention of the songs is to inspire communities to create their versions of contained circles together to sing + become more agile in their relationship with grief. 

 

The album is inspired by the five gates of grief from Francis Weller’s book The Wild Edge of Sorrow. Ahlay dreamed of recording the songs with a choir and from this vision, WAILS: Songs for Grief - Recording + Gathering was born. 

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The 4 days will be centered around 4 recorded song circles (3 hours each), recording 5 songs (the five gates) with a professional sound engineer. The recordings will happen inside a lodge and will be woven into the album WAILS: Songs for Grief to be released in early 2024.