Sunday, January 28, 2007


Richard Skelton

As an avid ‘Wire’ reader, I am often intrigued by their range of articles. I was not aware of it but some recent acquisitions I have were by Richard Skelton (see ‘Wire’ Feb. 2007, p12) under his many aliases.

Personal tragedy, i.e. the death of his wife in 2004, has spurred the 33 year old to lose himself in the creative process & the results are spectacular. His releases on his own label: Sustain-Release (www.sustain-release.co.uk) come out under various monikers e.g. Broken Consort, Carousell, Harlassen or Heidika.

As librarians we cannot help classifying or giving a taxonomy to ‘things’ so I would have to peg Richard Skelton’s work in either a post rock or a folktronic genre. However his output doesn’t really fit comfortably into either bracket & each album fluctuates across a broad spectrum. I like to think of it as a kind of minimal drift ambience, but perhaps that’s just me being silly!

In recent times this voyage of discovery of all this new post rock…whatever new music has been a real labour of love. There is a wealth of real quality music around. Not the MTV & other media-led pap we are constantly exposed to, but deep under the surface if you choose to look you will find great treasures. I feel that this is a very worthwhile quest & I have spent a good, many hours searching & the rewards make it worthwhile.

Fab gear just discovered includes Mono, the band not the record shop, café, club, restaurant in King St, Glasgow & the self-titled cd by Det Gamla Landet.

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