In the past few years, I have become a more significant fan of simple and elegant works, sometimes consisting of a single instrument, sometimes of a single theme. I wonder if it is perhaps related to the process of ageing and a calming mind. Ambient music begins to make more sense. The silence in between is as important as the sound surrounding it. On Marking Time, Richard Skelton uses a limited palette of organic instruments to reveal elementary artistic craftsmanship through slowly drawn-out, bowed, and scratched strings, plucked guitars, and light touches of piano keys.
In the spotlight of dark themes stands a lonely cello, sometimes agonising over long-lost hours of silence, sometimes sad for settled dust. Surrounded by echoing instruments, it cries in monotonic notes, sans any swings in harmony, repeating the oscillating frequencies assigned to each fret of a string. It is like a pendulum on a grandfather’s clock that the musicians on Marking Time bow the strings back and forth, back and forth, in a tireless rhythm, while something scratches in the attic, perhaps to gain an entrance, but most likely to escape. This tone tells a story. A story that is neither sad nor happy, neither good nor bad, but is simply just there. Like changing weather. Like cycling seasons. Like life and death.
Marking Time is Skelton’s first release under his real name. His previous works were put out under a number of monikers, including Clouwbeck, Heidika, Carousell and A Broken Consort. This is also the first album that came out on a label other than his own, Sustain-Release. The latter is a private press operation full of works by Skelton himself, dedicated to his wife, Louise, who died in 2004. This loss continues to seep through Skelton’s works in a sound of sorrow. After Marking Time got picked up by the Australian label, Preservation, in 2008, it was well received by critics. And earlier this year, John Twells of Type Records had put out a beautiful, limited edition, remastered vinyl pressing of the album, featuring Skelton’s own photographs on the cover.
Recommended for all of your modern classical and soul-resting needs. Fans of Lawrence English, Elegi, Machinefabriek, Jasper TX, Svarte Greiner, Rudi Arapahoe and, of course, Hildur Guðnadóttir, will be delighted.
