a broken consort

i am drawn to artists and musicians whose work describes the almost inexpressible.

one such artist is richard skelton.

richard hails from lancashire.

my birth county.

here's a glowing and fair review:

"skelton creates powerful, instrumental music out of densely-layered acoustic guitar,

bowed strings, piano, mandolin and accordion, often laced with delicate, shimmering

percussion. the result is something utterly unique - a music which is both life-affirming

and yet etched with memory and loss, evoking equal parts aarvo pärt and ry cooder,

nick drake and henryk górecki.

it is with a broken consort, perhaps, that skelton most-assuredly draws these elements

together, creating an ever-changing drift of rich textures and interleaved melody that

effortlessly evokes the landscapes which inspired it. box Of birch, his second album in

this guise, was originally published in a boxed edition that contained, among other

things, birch twigs collected from the west pennine moors. for skelton these things

act as a synecdoche for the landscape itself, a physical connection to the places in

which much of his music is recorded."

here's some of richard's music.

(as a kindness to yourself - because this is very beautiful music - when the music begins to play, stop it and allow the little red bar that tells you how much of it has loaded to get a good "headstart". it can be a slow loading piece of music for some strange reason and it can only damage the listening experience to have it stop and start - thanks for your understanding!)