Shackleton - Devotional Songs

Dubstep, it's the crazy new sound of the future, have you heard?

Shackleton is brilliant. If you don't agree then listen to the tracks below and then agree that you're wrong and I'm right.

This new piece is magnificent though, really. It recalls Coil, Throbbing Gristle type stuff, from time to time the sound of Shackleton's own earlier work, medieval sounding stuff and bizarrely put me in mind of musical theatre, some of the vocal work has a Sondheimesque quality to it, not so much in the content (though it could be lifted from some imaginary musical about pestilence, murder and plague) but in the delivery.

The whole piece has an orchestrated feel to it, yet is simultaneously self consciously synthetic. This 'digital orchestration' works almost better than I've ever heard, I'm struggling to think of a piece of 'orchestral' electronica where I've enjoyed the arrangement as much. More remarkable is the way the instrumentation really works - Synthesised violins sound like electronic instruments, choirs sound like sound effects but that's all good. I can't put my finger on why - I think it's the deliberate incongruity of the medium and the source material and how masterful the arrangement is.

This is music which in part could happily sit on Radio 3 yet has moments where you feel the hazy futurism and the beat swells in just the right way. It also has lengthy organ explorations which sit just the right side of irritating, being anchored by tight, fascinating percussion and the feeling that they are heading somewhere. Where though is another question. The record evokes medieval villages whilst at the same time evoking a mid future dystopia. It's a digital Wickerman in parts, tribal and ritualistic.

It's a shape-shifting force of a record, a magnificent example of having expectations defied and I'm struggling to think of a something released this year (ok, last year) which has sounded more intriguing and engaging through repeated listens. I like it precisely because it does things that leave me thinking, ' do I like this?'

It is for sale here

Beyond the street lamps: The music of Richard Skelton.

What we revere in nature is not always natural. Fells blasted and quarried, grazed and shorn of trees.

How we see this world is not always as it is. We see something better than the sprawl and depravity of the city but nature is not some moral agent, not some harmonious balance.

Nature is a story of starvation, of disease, of territory and scavengers​. It is a story of flux. A story of tiny details and ugly beauty, of burrowing insects and fungus, of lichen and larvae.

There is nothing bucolic or idyllic about the fellside in the dark. The carcass of some creature lurking in the heather, stripped clean in a matter of days by the brutal ecosystem.

There are countless artists who make their mark in the world of 'darkness' imbuing the world with a presence of some kind of looming evil.

There are many who find their expression creating a sense of the 'light' giving the world a sense of optimism or beauty.

There are fewer who can record the world in such a way that it just is. Skelton sculpts vast soundscapes which evoke the soul cleansing majesty of landscapes like the West Pennine Moors and the quieter, wilder parts of Cumbria. Crucially though, he does this without recourse to sentiment and he captures both the light and shade.

Think the sheer primal delight of a mountain stream and the scent of thousands of tiny flowers but think also of the, plunge, grip and kill of the falcon, beak hungrily ripping life from bone or the vast expanse of nothingness swept by squall of icy rain or beset by a freezing, cloaking fog.

These landscapes may not be natural but they are something primal, something entirely separate from the faddish temporary fetishism of city life. There is something intrinsically timeless at least from our fragile human perspective of a landscape where the main physical features were moved by the last ice age.

In the glacial shifts of Skelton's music there is something beyond words, something that is almost (perhaps there is no need for the tentative qualifier almost) elemental. It is true. It is a music which speaks of life outside the narratives we construct to distract ourselves from the essential reality of life. It is the sound from the darkness beyond streetlights. If that sounds unwelcoming, ponder that the streetlights blind us from see seeing the stars. If we cannot gaze at the stars, how can we know who we are?

Echo of (another) World: The music of Arthur Russell

Like being wrapped in cool clean linen on a warm morning, the light flooding through tall windows, a warm breeze flickering long drapes.

Staring into space at city lights in soft focus. Feet, voices, motors all become a hush. A blanket of people, whispered comfort.

Travelling, head against the seat rest. The view is a blur. Close up you see nothing but streaks whilst the distance is sharp.

Mournful, like the sea. Smoothed over stones, cold water, the air carries an other worldly scent. Things that hurt so deeply but here, they just rest in your chest. They become you, become your breath, the flailing sharp knives of longing and tragedy become becalmed.

Beyond comprehension.

Being warm, watching the rain fall down outside. Insulated.

As snow fall softens every sound.

The music of Arthur Russell always evokes a world of millpond still beauty, a tranquillity and a sense of reflection. It's probably the most open-hearted music I know and there's a something touching about his ability to make a love song sound like a piece of devotional incantation.

There's a simplicity to his work, both musically and thematically that suggests an appreciation of the smaller things, the detail.

Things as they are. Being just who he is. The sense of self in his music is remarkable, he is utterly distinctive yet manages to vocally subsume himself to the textures of the cello, to become invisible, just another layer. Words weave, rise and fall, to listen is to become like a glider held aloft by air currents.

Everything is nothing.