Good morning, and happy Friday. Summer barely got here, and now Autumn has pushed it out of the way, coming in with its darkness, cold, and rain through my windows. And somehow, it is welcome, very much in tune with all the inner vibrations, colouring the feelings with its wet and grey palette. By now, I have professed my love for emotional music and accepted a particular realm of that spectrum—moody, melancholy, and morose. I don’t know why that is. Perhaps it is related to the human condition. But I’m not the type to skip and hop along the way. Are you? And with that particular sound, I need the precise atmospheric condition. It cannot be relished on a bright, sunny day. So… yes, Autumn is perfect, in just the right manner, when tears of the clouds wash off all that pain. This is when I finally find it appropriate to turn to the music of Richard Skelton, a British composer known for his evocative, ethereal and deeply textural works inspired by landscape, nostalgia and, ultimately, loss.
Skelton’s work under his real name and various pseudonyms, such as A Broken Consort, The Inward Circles, and Imperial Valley, among others, has frequently been covered on these pages. Most of his releases have appeared on his label, Corbel Stone Press, which he ran from Cumbria in northern England for many years until the recent move to Galway, Ireland. These come out in lovingly handmade editions of music and text and would appeal to fans of archival mementoes, sonic and otherwise (there are also books of poetry). There is also an offshoot called Aeolian Editions, on which we find this latest album. I believe that it was initially intended to be a digital-only imprint, but the outlets have blurred, and this gorgeous release, along with the special edition of the preceding album, The Preliminaries, is released as a double CD in a handmade jacket with unique signed artwork and a 16-page booklet full of photographs. I’d love to urge you to buy this edition, but unfortunately, it is already sold out. There is also an older archive of Skelton’s music under the now-retired Sustain-Release imprint. You can read more about this in my 2015 Interview with Richard Skelton.
There is a particular aesthetic and approach to composition on this latest “sonic fiction”, recorded on a Phasic 2½ inch reel-to-reel, adding that warm analogue sound, using the ‘Carna’ clavophone, “a uniquely chaotic electroacoustic device on loan from the Ryan Marine Science Institute” with its unpredictable tonal textures. I don’t know what a clavophone is [I had to add that word to my dictionary just now], but I always know that it’s Skelton’s music I’m listening to when it lovingly scrapes at the depths of my soul. These bowed, scratched and shuffled string sounds transform a dense collection of visceral music into an airy and sensitive score of an incredibly organic and sentimental journey. Beautifully arranged in a reverberated space, these corda-driven drones and meditative soundscapes tend to betray my ears when picking out synthesized or digital techniques.
On the old thrawing crux, Skelton once again captures the haunting beauty of the environment that inspires him. In addition to the experimental and ambient vibrations, the tracks take on a more hypnotic feel, especially as they build upon loops punctuated in places by an acoustic rhythm. The meditative arrangements evoke a sense of deep nostalgia as if the listener is witnessing and becoming part of a fading memory, ephemeral and eternal. For those familiar with his previous works, this album continues his exploration of sound as a reflection of place and emotion. Highly recommended to those who appreciate Skelton’s particular flavour of composed weather, scented with a passing time and painted with a tender emotion.
