Under the pseudonym The Inward Circles, Richard Skelton recently released his first solo album in over two years titled Nimrod is Lost in Orion and Osyris in the Doggestarre. The music was framed by the accompanying book of texts, art and photography – offers what Skelton describes as a ‘picture of a wood through which slanting light dimly traces other forms’. Where this release differs from the likes of Landings and Ridgelines is that the focus is not on a specific place. With Landings the ‘place’ was the sparsely populated parish of Anglezarke, on the West Pennine Moors of northern England.
Noon Hill Wood from The Complete Landings
Nimrod presents the idea of music as a relic of an imaginary landscape; a series of notional artefacts:
‘I wanted to concentrate on sound as a material presence – to explore it as a substance that might endure weathering, to reveal layers of harmonic till with outcrops of more obdurate material; moraines of static, veins of melody.’
The titles of the tracks are taken from the text of Thomas Browne’s (19 October 1605 – 19 October 1682) work Urn Burial / Garden of Cyrus. Browne, like Skelton had a deep curiosity towards the natural world.
The Inward Circles marks a bold departure from his much-imitated signature sound, delving deeper into subterranean landscapes, charting ‘the darkness of earth’ to reveal ‘layers of harmonic till with outcrops of more obdurate material; moraines of static, veins of melody’. It evinces the near-obsessive preoccupation with ‘sound as a material presence’ which last year saw him bury and then exhume a violin in Northumberland soil, in order to intimately explore the processes of weathering and environmental degradation.
SAISIONSCAPE: LANDSCAPE WITH RICHARD SKELTON
Richard Skelton will perform three headline UK shows in March (dates below) as part of Saisonscape, Art Assembly’s bi-monthly series of experimental music.
Titled Landscape, these spring shows will reflect on sound born out of, or inspired by, the land, and will see Skelton performing compositions from his new album. Skelton is seen as being very much at the vanguard of a new movement of artists performing music that is directly influenced by landscape. Over the past decade Skelton has amassed a significant body of work that distills the essence of natural landscapes, from the moors of Lancashire (Landings) to the mountains of Cumbria (Limnology) and the karst terrain of the west coast of Ireland (Verse of Birds).
A key aim to the series as a whole is to support the practice of emerging artists. To that end, support slots at each event of Saisonscape will provide a platform for emerging artists and new work. Art Assembly will host a ‘Call Out’ to invite artists to submit proposals to perform at each of additions. Two artists will be selected by a panel to appear at each event.
Saisonscape, Landscape, represents a rare opportunity to experience new work from this truly innovative artist.
The shows will see Skelton performing at the following venues:
20 March 2015 – Manchester, Islington Mill hosted by Fat Out Till You Pass Out
21 March 2015 – Bexhill on Sea, De La Warr Pavillion
22 March 2015 – London, St John at Hackney Church hosted by Art Assembly
More here: www.artassembly.org.uk/landscape