Gilroy Mere - Gilden Gate

 

 

Vinyl/CD/Download

900 hand numbered copies on sea green vinyl 

Ships 24th March

Pre-order £20.99 HERE

Oliver Cherer is back with a new Gilroy Mere record which follows on from his other much lauded Clay Pipe releases (The Green Line, Adlestrop and last year’s D Rothon collaboration, Estuary English). Over the last two decades Ollie has released numerous collections of music in an ever shifting array of modes, from folktronic, singer-songwriter styles through psychogeographic electronica to jazz-tinged, confessional ghost-pop and most recently, the “guitar tainted machine rock disco” of Aircooled.

Gilden Gate is an album of two halves. Side 1 ‘Rising’ celebrates the sun-drenched beaches, pastures and heaths of rural Suffolk, whereas Side 2 ‘Falling’ explores the underwater world of the lost city of Dunwich and its five church spires.

Oliver says:-

“A few years ago I discovered the lost city of Dunwich. I’d made a trip to Suffolk to shoot a short film about Sizewell Nuclear Power Stations and stayed in the old Coastguard’s Cottage on Dunwich Beach within sight of Minsmere Nature Reserve and the power plants. It’s a wild, sleepy place of pines and heath and North Sea winds and a strangely mysterious air – Sutton Hoo is nearby and Eno’s reference to the very beach that I was staying on made perfect sense. In the small museum at Dunwich I learned that this tiny hamlet had once been a major medieval city of international trade. It seemed unlikely and even now, knowing Dunwich as a small village, I find putting what I know about the place into perspective as a city a certain kind of impossible.

It seems that over a period under the influence of the weather, natural erosion and market rivalry the thriving harbour port was inundated by the North Sea and eventually slipped into and under it. The city of churches was lost and all the spires engulfed and toppled. What remains are the few houses, and the ruin of Greyfriars crumbling inexorably down the cliff and exposing the bones of buried monks as the graveyard follows the building’s stones into the sea.

There are local legends surrounding the site including stories of fishermen hearing the bells of lost churches and seeing the ghostly, lighted city beneath their boats as they return to the shore.

Gilden Gate is named for one of the entrances to the old city and is a musical meditation on Dunwich past and present. Frances Castle’s beautiful sleeve art depicts the surface and the sub-marine, the warm and the cold, the past and the present. The glass rises and the glass falls and in the background there are sirens, fog horns, church bells and Eno, and on the sea bed there are the scattered remains of a once great city.”

 

 

Clay Pipe Music · 04 Bicycle Ballet

Clay Pipe Music · 09 St Nicholas

 

Available at the same time is a repress of Gilroy Mere’s ever popular second LP Adlestrop. It was originally released in 2020 and is inspired by the remains of the rural railway stations that were closed in the wake of the 1963 Beeching Report. 500 hand numbered copies with cutout paper station.Orginal release info HERE

Ships 24th March

 Pre-order £20.99 HERE 

David Boulter - Factory

Thanks to everyone who came out to the Clay Pipe night at Cafe Oto, the remaining copies of David Boulters 'Factory' Mini CD are up in the shop.

£11.00 +P&P

One per person.

Clay Pipe Night at Cafe Oto & David Boulter's 'Factory'.

SOLD OUT

 

Come and join us for the Clay Pipe Night at Cafe Oto, Dalston, London, on the 4th Feb. Tickets are £13 in advance. We have lots planned:

David Boulter presents the whole of his album 'Yarmouth'.  With musicians Dan McKinna (Tindersticks) on double bass and Tom Hodges on Flute, Saxaphone and Guitar.

Gilroy Mere and band will be playing tracks from 'Green Line' and 'Adlestrop' as well as music from his forthcoming LP 'Gilden Gate' Musicans include: Riz Maslen (Neotroptic), Helen Edwards and Jack Hayter (Hefner)

D. Rothon's band has Hilary Robinson on keyboards and John Hymas on strings they will be playing peices from 'Nightscapes' and 'Memories of Earth' as well as new material.

 In celebration of the event we have a special release:  David Boulter 'Factory' the 4th in the series of Clay Pipe Mini CDs.
 

Clay Pipe welcomes back the Tinderstick’s Keyboard player for his third release on the label. This time he presents the long-form track ‘Factory’ as part of the label’s new series of Mini CDs.

“My Mother started working in one of Nottingham’s lace factories when she was 15 years old, and was there until the early eighties, when most closed their doors for good.

As a young boy, I’d spend school holidays sat in a corner, not able to stay home alone, with a book and some pencils, watching the men and women making Nottingham’s famous lace. Eating a sandwich in the canteen. Pushing carts of off cuts and damages around, trying to help out. The big machine was already silent. Its hole punched cards still hanging from it. I always thought they looked very futuristic. Like the computer cards I saw in the science fiction films of the day.

I have fond memories of watching the big factory in motion. The people, the sounds, the smell. It all seemed very exciting. I guess for the people who’d been working there all their lives - and could see an end to it - It had a very different feel. This music is inspired by my time sat in that corner of a world now gone.”

David Boulter 2023

Available at the Clay Pipe Night at Cafe Oto on 4th Feb 2023

Clay Pipe Music · A short section from 'Factory' by David Boulter

Andrew Wasylyk - Hearing the Water Before Seeing the Falls

 

                            

Clay Pipe - turquoise blue vinyl £19.99

Monorail - crystal clear vinyl with booklet £22.99

Assai -  transparent green vinyl with booklet £23.99

And many other good record shops.

Assai and Monorail booklets are different.

 "with his latest record, you can’t help but feel he’s onto something truly magnificent.” // “ebbs and flows between dreamlike states and palpable reality." // “A deeply profound album that’s dense in multitudes, allow yourself the time and patience to bask Andrew Wasylyk’s latest compelling body of work." 5 stars + 'Album Of The Month' - The Skinny

"Wasylyk’s Fender Rhodes and Juno 60 synth weave lonesome, exploratory creative patterns, heavy with beauty and loss, that simultaneously create a sense of profound warmth and security." - 4/5, MOJO Magazine

“floats between exploratory jazz, celestial ambient, romantic avant-garde and impressionistic soundtracks, and heartily reclaims vast horizons… a stunning statement” - 4/5, Shindig! Magazine

"beautiful jazz-soaked ambient music that is liberating and meditative" // "The album cements Wasylyk's reputation as not only an ambitious and brilliant multi-instrumentalist, but as a serious modern artist." - NARC Magazine 5/5

"a beautiful reposte to a stunning collection." - SNACK Magazine

“The opening track alone, all 16 minutes of it, is a stone-cold killer.” // “There is something truly beautiful here from an artist who is standing 19 up to be counted in his own right". - Moonbuilding Magazine

“sensational Scottish composer achieves perfect calm” - i Newspaper

"It’s shimmering small ensemble mood music, primarily instrumental, friendly and chilled, bringing to mind a sense of summer countryside, tones and strings adding a sense of things ongoing, timeless." - The Arts Desk 

 "It's wildly evocative without being overwrought, tenderly downplayed in parts and crushingly crescentic in others. A real step closer to worldwide domination for one of the most talented composers out there." - Piccadilly Records, Manchester

"Without overstating things this feels like a revelatory work that’s both documentary and dreamlike. There’s so much to delve into here, so much to learn, a majestic, magnificent record to wrap around you in all seasons.” - Monorail Music, Glasgow

  

 

Tickets for Andrews December tour are HERE

 

Cate Brooks - Winterfest

 

 

Cate Brooks - Winterfest

8cm Mini CD, in bespoke printed sleeve, with bandcamp download code.

SOLD OUT

300 copies.

Digital available from CafeKaput's Bandcamp

 The third in the series of Clay Pipe Mini CDs is Cate Brooks 'Winterfest'.

 "Outside Broadcast vehicles gather in the cold twilight, whilst lights glow and sparkle in the hotel lobby; such is the pure magic of the season." 

I love winter and all the emotions the season stirs within us. This collection of work is a paean to my winters of the past, present and future; the situations I’ve found myself in and the promise of those that could happen.

It all started with the unearthing of a field recording I made over twenty years ago, of snow falling. It was freezing out there and I had a microphone pointing skyward to the falling flakes, in the middle of a field. It was fascinating listening back to the textures, with a bubbling stream attempting to fight being frozen, along with distant trains passing. With the passage of time, these textures take on a very emotive hue. They are now woven directly into the fabric of the work.

I’m hoping that Winterfest will accompany your winter activities, all the way from December to the end of February.

Cate Brooks, Nov 22 

This release has been brought forward a couple of weeks,  to avoid the Christmas postal rush, also available will be cards based on the artwork for Winterfest, Giclee prints of the Hardy Tree's 'Common Grounds' and hand thrown Clay Pipe Beer Cups by NyankoPots Studio. There is also a small selection of cards and flexi-disc's from David Boulters 2021 release 'Twelve Bells for Lebúse'.

 

Andrew Wasylyk - Hearing the Water Before Seeing the Falls

 

                            

Now available to pre-order from:

 Clay Pipe - turquoise blue vinyl £19.99

Monorail - crystal clear vinyl with booklet £22.99

Assai -  transparent green vinyl with booklet £24.99

And many other good record shops.

Assai and Monorail booklets are different.

Release date 25th Nov 2022

 

 

‘Hearing The Water Before Seeing The Falls’ is Andrew Wasylyk’s second LP for the esteemed Clay Pipe Music label. It sees the Scottish composer and producer reach for new ground, finding quietly sublime imagery in rich and immersive worlds; horizon-less oceans and limitless landscapes.

The initial seed of inspiration for this work was conceived as a commissioned response to ‘The World’s Edge’ exhibition, by American contemporary landscape photographer Thomas Joshua Cooper, at the National Galleries of Scotland.

Andrew journeyed with Cooper to Inchcolm Island in the Firth of Forth to learn of the artist’s practice. Specifically, his three decades of travel across five continents, capturing cardinal points and extreme locations surrounding the Atlantic Ocean. Many of which will be under water within 35 years as a result of the impact of our changing climate.

From the deep allure of the sea to the symbolism and folklore of flowers, a dreaming to leave or a longing to stay, “Hearing The Water Before Seeing The Falls” utilises the ideas behind TJC’s work as a point of departure. Exploring outwardly in search of a better understanding within, themes of longing, self-discovery, new parenthood and premonitions weave through a Wasylyk
album of melodic succour.

In ‘Dreamt In The Current Of Leafless Winter’; ambiences and devotional bells are imbued with the visceral playing of saxophonist/composer Angus Fairbairn, aka Alabaster DePlume, whose unmistakable tone casts ethereal and impressionistic hues across this striking, long form opener.

Elsewhere, string phrases flourish in pockets between restrained drum groove and light-touch
piano chords of ‘The Confluence’, conducted by Pete Harvey (Modern Studies). Harvey’s sonorous arrangements augmented Andrew’s ‘The Paralian’ (2019) and ‘Fugitive Light And Themes Of Consolation’ (2020). Again, they illuminate and articulate throughout this collection.

The arc of present and past is examined in ‘The Life Of Time’, featuring words and narration by Thomas Joshua Cooper himself. His rich, baritone transcends amongst a rolling piano motif, undulating violins and the mellifluous brass work of Rachel Simpson.

With ‘Truant In Gossamer’ a new absence is felt while synthesised arpeggios glide and intertwine with glistening harp in the cadence of a farewell vibraphone. Steadily, this luminous journey dissolves and comes to a remarkable end.

Previously described as a "spiritual-jazz salve bathed in the cinematic”, Andrew Wasylyk is accumulating a growing body of work. With this seven song suite he distills these ideas and offers perhaps his most bold record yet. ‘Hearing The Water Before Seeing The Falls’, the follow-up to 2021’s ‘Balgay Hill: Morning In Magnolia’, is framed in a hypnagogic fog of wonder and possibility. A place to shade your dreamtime in subtle colour.

 

 

 Monorail

 

                                                                      

Assai

 

Apta - Starlight

 

Apta - Starlight

8cm Mini CD, in bespoke printed sleeve, with bandcamp download code.

SOLD OUT. Shipping 30th Sept.

300 copies.

The second in Clay Pipe’s new series of Mini CDs is ‘Starlight’ by Apta. ‘Starlight’ is a journey that takes you from the setting sun to the breaking dawn. Travelling through the airy stillness of moonlight and the warming embrace of sleep - from dreaming and stargazing to the lysergic tingle of semi-consciousness. 

Apta is Barry Smethurst a musician from Manchester, who utilises modular synths, guitars and Electron boxes to create beautiful electronic music that is as warm and fuzzy as it it is bright and luminous. Over the last few years he has had releases on labels such as Polytechnic Youth, With Bells, Woodford Halse and Werra Foxma. 

Apta’s ‘Starlight’ will come with a free cut-out and keep slipcase, for storage of the five Mini CDs in the series.

In response to the vinyl crisis, and the lack of spontaneity in having to plan records so far ahead, Clay Pipe is introducing a new series of releases on mini-CD. Each tiny 8cm disc will bring 20 minutes of beautiful music with no filler. Presented in bespoke packaging, that recalls the look of the early releases on the label, these CDs will be a way to bring new musicians and producers to Clay Pipe, and act as a space for more familiar names to experiment. Larger run vinyl releases will continue as they always have, with the mini CDs adding new material to the catalogue.

 

 

Clay Pipe Music · 04 North Star (La Vache Fantôme)

The Hardy Tree - Common Grounds

 

 The Hardy Tree - Common Grounds

LP / CD / DL

700 hand numbered vinyl copies.

Vinyl and CD In Shop 

Digital via Bandcamp

Vinyl still available at: Rough Trade.

 

Hushed synths and Mellotrons soundtrack urban walks through Victorian London suburbs.

Frances Castle is the illustrator/owner behind the Clay Pipe record label and The Hardy Tree is her on- going musical project. Common Grounds was started during the first 2020 lock down - when time moved very slowly and travel away from home became impossible.

The album was recorded at home by Frances using her collection of analogue synths, then mixed to tape with Ed Deegan at Gizzard Studios in East London. Ed plays drums on three of the tracks.

“Like many others with nowhere else to go, I walked the streets of my neighbourhood for exercise and well-being. I rambled like I might in the country side; stopping every now and then to take in the view, or notice something I’d missed before. I began to see the ghosts of the people who had lived here in the past, and notice the things that they had left behind; shapes of ancient tram tracks creeping under the tarmac, an old gas street lamp in an alleyway, a tiny metal sign indicating a culverted river. I spent my evenings writing and recording the music on this LP, and then the following day would listen to the rough mixes as I walked, the music began to soundtrack the walks, and the walks began influencing the type of music I was creating.”

Frances Castle 2022

Wordless but exuding a strong transportive presence. There are hints of the ghostliness of Boards of Canada and the tranquilllity of prime Vangelis. Shingdig 4/5* stars

Celebrates the simple joys of the present, even when they are rooted in a faded, half-ridden past. Electronic Sound

We're totally losing ourselves in the magical world of The Hardy Tree. Common Grounds is so good. Monorail, Glasgow

Analogue melodies with baroque inflections of crystalline harpsichord and airy mellotron, painting idyllic scenes of solitude.Bleep, Album of the week.  

  

 Print available from Normans Records - SOLD OUT

                                             Print available as part of CD + LP bundle - SOLD OUT