Drone Records
Your cart (0 item)

SKELTON, RICHARD - Landings

Format: CD
Label & Cat.Number: Type Records 055
Release Year: 2010
Note: organic ambience from this British composer
Price (incl. 19% VAT): €15.50
Warning: Currently we do not have this album in stock!


More Info

"Seit der Veröffentlichung des fast schon genrebestimmenden Albums "Marking Time" wurde die Musik von Richard Skelton (u. a. auch A Broken Consort, Riftmusic, Carousell) für ihre rohe, organische Schönheit, ihre Ehrlichkeit und Beherrschtheit gelobt. Das Album "Landings" fasst Skeltons Arbeit von vier Jahren in der
hügeligen Moorlandschaft Nordenglands zusammen. "Landings" ist kein einfacher Songzyklus, sondern vielmehr ein Tagebuch, ein Dialog mit der Landschaft selbst, der von großer Erzählkunst zeugt. Skelton führt uns durch eine literarische Reise, auf der sich seine schmerzhaft schönen Melodien im Geäst der Birken
verfangen ("Noon Hill Wood") oder sich in den eiskalten Strudeln eines Flusses (die Eno-artige Ballade "Green Withins Brook") wiederfinden. Aber Skelton schlägt auch düstere Töne an, wie etwa auf "Voice Of The Book", einer Symphonie gestrichener Metallsounds, die in den Ruinen eines alten Farmhauses entstand.
"Landings" ist eine herausfordernde, einnehmende Erfahrung und zweifellos Skeltons bis dato beste Arbeit.// A truly epic culmination of four years of recording on the moors and hillsides of Northern England.
Since the release of the genre-defining ‘Marking Time’, the music of Richard Skelton has been widely celebrated for its raw, organic beauty, its honesty and restraint. Whether the work has been under his own name or under one of his many shadowy guises (A Broken Consort, Riftmusic, Carousell, Clouwbeck and others) there is a level of skill, a sureness of touch, and an emotional resonance that is virtually unparalleled by his peers. ‘Landings’ is the culmination of four years of recording on the moors and hillsides of Northern England. The resulting album isn’t simply a suite of songs in the mould of ‘Marking Time’, but a form of diary; a dialogue with the landscape itself. It is imbued with a real sense of narrative – and of place – that is both epic in scale and yet intimate in feel. And so we are taken on a literal journey across the threshold of ‘Noon Hill Wood’, with its achingly beautiful interleaved bowed melodies, drifting through ranks of pine, larch and birch. From there we cross the river and climb the slopes of the nearby hills in search of the source of ‘Green Withins Brook’ – a crushing Eno-esque ballad for concertina, recorded by the banks of the fledgeling stream as the ice melted one wintry morning. We are then taken across miles of bleak moorland, and to the album’s desolate centrepiece, ‘Voice of the Book’, a symphony of bowed metallic sounds recorded in the ruins of a centuries-old farm house. Finally, we make a long, slow decent into the valley, and follow the river as it leaves the moorland behind.
‘Landings’ is a demanding, involving experience and is without a doubt Skelton’s most complete work to date, containing within it the very essence of his musical output. Slowly, over the course of its 70+ minutes, he reveals the heart of his compositional skill and with that we are drawn into the depth of his work. Rarely are albums so involving and so absolutely moving." [label info]

www.typerecords.com


"Originally released on Skelton's own Sustain-Release Private
Press Imprint in 2009 as a sonic accompaniment to a collection of
writings bearing the same name, both were made over a period of 4
years in the landscape of Lancashire's West Pennine Moors. The chilly
Arcadian climate sets the perfect tone for Skelton's oblique
investigations into memory, displacement and loss. Made with huge
washes of long-form bowed string drones and piano tones in a deep
engagement with the natural surroundings, you can feel the all- encompassing frost,
the cold water on falling leaves, and the harsh blanket of wind through a threadbare shelter.
Attempting to resolve the delicate boundary between intense loneliness and tranquil solitude, these recordings take off from the personal memorial to his
wife of his last release under the moniker A Broken Consort, and into
a beautifully larger dialogue of place, history and perseverance." [Aquarius Records]