Afterlight is an alias used by the Oxford, England-born, folk-inspired singer/songwriter Thea Gilmore from the late 2021 onwards to represent her music following an acrimonious divorce from her musical partner of over two decades, Nigel Stonier.

Gilmore released 17 studio albums between 1998 and 2019, each produced by Stonier -- a multi-instrumentalist formerly of '80s folk-rock act Northern Sky -- whom she met while working at Dave Pegg's Woodworm Studios. Her prolific career was punctuated by regular acclaim from the music press, but didn't translate into a full commercial breakthrough. However, Gilmore's mid-2010s triptych of albums -- 2013's Regardless, 2015's Ghosts Graffiti, and 2017's The Counterweight -- each reached the U.K. Top 40. By 2019's Small World Turning, her relationship with Stonier had run its course and it was to be her last record with him at the production helm.

October 2021 brought the simultaneous release of two albums, both themed around her breakup. While The Emancipation of Eva Grey was a jazz-inspired set, it would also be her last record issued as Thea Gilmore. The second album, Afterlight, was the first to be released under her new moniker. It was a sparse, intense, and unwaveringly confident record produced by Seadna McPhail, a previous collaborator who had also worked with Jane Weaver, Badly Drawn Boy, and I Am Kloot. Bookended by spoken word poems alongside pared-back pieces, there were also lushly produced full-band arrangements. Fittingly, one such track, "Spotlight," featured a tasteful, descending bass run that echoed the playing on "Simple Twist of Fate," from Gilmore hero Bob Dylan's archetypal breakup album Blood on the Tracks. ~ James Wilkinson, Rovi