Stories and myths. They ripple like rivers through our lives, our cultures. Some are ancient, others more recent, but they all help to shape us, to guide and console us along the ways of life and love and death.

They have a quiet power, and that"s what Belgian musician and composer Catherine Graindorge explores on her new album "Songs for the Dead" Over the years, Graindorge has worked with an incredible cast of collaborators, including Iggy, Nick Cave, Hugo Race and producer John Parish (PJ Harvey). But for Songs for the Dead she wanted a small, tight ensemble, so she called on regular collaborators Simon Ho on keyboards, and bassist Pascal Humbert (16 Horsepower, Lilium, Détroit) who both know her and her music well. "Songs for the Dead" is quite deliberately an album that gives space for the imagination, "where people can come and go in the music," Graindorge says.

And there"s plenty to explore in the stories of Orpheus and Eurydice and Ginsberg"s dream meeting with Joan Burroughs. Myths ancient and modern. Legends and stories. "Songs for the Dead" is a quietly understated epic, with plenty of shade and light in the playing and the compositions. Yet throughout, it carries the creeping sense of foreboding and inevitability that befit its title.

As a seasoned composer for film and theatre, Graindorge understands the power of atmosphere in music and uses it to the full here. Melodies unfurl slowly, always lyrical, and the silences are as important as the notes. And these stories Catherine Graindorge tells are eternal. The music of love and grief, songs for the end of love and life. Songs for the dead who live on in hearts and memories