100 copies available at The Independent Label Market, London
Clay Pipe will be at the Independent Label Market on Saturday 10th May 2025 with lots of rare back stock, new stock, vinyl LPs, enamel badges, prints, Mini CDs, Flexi discs and test pressings!
Please drop me an email if you are coming and would like to reserve an item.
Clay
Pipe Music
invites you to take a journey through the Midlands countryside with
Frankley
My Dear–
a new Mini CD housed in a handmade box from Andy Baker’s The
Baker Fields.
The
5-track collection takes its cue from a bicycle ride through Andy’s
local area – past the duck pond at Lickey Hills, through Uffmoor
Woods (named after the great Mercian King Offa, where a carpet of
bluebells appears in spring), and on to Frankley Beeches, which
overlooks Birmingham. On Bonfire Night, people gather here to watch a
million fireworks across the city, and on quieter days, you might
hear the call of a Yellow Hammer. The journey also takes in the old
church in Romsley, named after St Kenelm, who was believed to have
been murdered on the nearby Clent Hills.
Each
track is infused with a fuzzy melancholy, melodic grace, and a gentle
psychedelic undercurrent – music shaped by quiet lanes,
half-forgotten landmarks, and the gentle passing of time.
Clay
Pipe Music is pleased to introduce London-based Anglo-Spanish
duo Micro Moon
- pianist/synthesist Isabel Pérez Castro and guitarist/synthesist
Stephen Holbrook.
Their
Mini CD Figure
in a Landscapeblends
classical piano with rich electronic textures and melodies, taking
you to diverse locations—from the sound mirrors of Romney Marsh in
Kent to the atmospheric Fábrica da Luz, or 'light factories,'
nestled in the Galician mountains of Spain. It’s a beautifully
crafted sonic journey inspired by the various regions they have hiked
and explored.
After
discussing a musical collaboration for years, the
couple finally
started working together during the early days of the pandemic,
experimenting with sound at home and teaching themselves production
along the way. This lead to their debut project Public
Health—a
work inspired by an exhibition at the Wellcome Collection on
historical public health initiatives, as well as Iain
Sinclair’s
book Living
with Buildings and Walking with Ghosts.
Iain
allowed them to use some spoken text from the book for their track,
City
Rites.
Drawing
on subtractive synthesis, drone music, the Radiophonic Workshop, and
psychogeography, Figure
in a Landscape
sees the duo crafting immersive compositions inspired by real-world
locations, transporting listeners into vivid aural environments.
Stagdale part 3is available from the Clay Pipe Greedbag shop and The Hardy Tree Bandcamp.
Frances
Castle presents the third part of her graphic novel Stagdale,
accompanied by a new soundtrack EP from her musical alter ego The
Hardy Tree.
Stagdale Part 3, drawn and written by
Clay Pipe Music founder Frances Castle, continues the story of Kathy
and Max—two strangers, a generation apart, who both unexpectedly
find themselves living in the isolated village of Stagdale. When twelve-year-old Kathy discovers a wartime
diary hidden behind the skirting board of the old cottage she and her
mother are renting, she is instantly captivated. As she delves into
its pages, she begins to suspect that the tale of the missing Stag
Jewel - told to her by her new friend Joe - isn't quite what it
seems. Could the diary hold the key to unravelling a mystery that's
been buried for 30 years?
A special edition of the book will include a Flexi
Disc featuring the title track “September 1975.” There will also
be a limited reissue of the original Flexi Disc editions from Books
1 & 2. Additionally, Book 2 has been reprinted with
a matt cover, so all three books in the series now have a more
cohesive look.
Also available from Greedbag on the 29th November will be coaster sets based on the artwork for Andrew Wasylyk and Tommy Perman's Ash Grey And The Gull Glides On and Risograph prints of The Hardy Tree's All the Hours.
Clay Pipe will be at Jonny Trunks Groovy Record Fayre on the 2nd November at The Mildmay Club, London, N16. Lots of hard to find back stock, as well as new releases, badges etc. Free entry from 10am. Hope to see you there.
The
Hardy Tree,
the musical project of Frances Castle, founder of the acclaimed Clay
Pipe Music label, is pleased to announce the release of All
the Hours as
part of the Clay Pipe Mini CD series. This 20-minute composition
beautifully captures the passage of a day, from dawn to dusk.
All the Hours
was initially composed for a live performance at The Betsey Trotwood
pub in London last February. The piece serves as the soundtrack to a
slow-moving animation inspired by the cover art of The Hardy Tree’s
previous album, Common Grounds.
It takes listeners on a journey from night to day and back again,
unfolding through delicate looped woodwinds and melodic soundscapes.
The music was created using an Elektron Syntakt and an Elektron
Digitakt, and the limitations and constraints of the instruments helped define the
sound of the music.
Frances will be
performing “All the Hours”
on September
14th, 2024 at The
Lexington on Pentonville Road in London, supporting Andrew Wasylyk
and Tommy Perman. There will be CDs for sale at the event. Tickets.
If you preordered the second pressing of David Boulters St Ann's or Andrew Wasylyk and Tommy Perman's Ash Grey And The Gull Glides On there has been a delay in the records reaching us. We now hope to start shipping them in the second week of September.
If you are attending any of Andrew Wasylyk and Tommy Perman's shows in the next month they will have a small amount of records with them. They are all we have right now.
If you ordered a CD, they will ship in time for release.
Wednesday, 7 August 2024
Andrew Wasylyk | Tommy Perman tour dates. On 12/09 they will be joined by Clay Pipe artists Zyggurat in Birmingham and by The Hardy Tree in London on the 14/09 Tickets: thegullglideson.co.uk
‘Ash Grey And The Gull Glides On’ is the new album by Scottish composers Andrew Wasylyk and Tommy Perman. The pair have orbited each others worlds for a number of years through audio-visual collaborations spanning record releases, films and sound installations. Wasylyk’s cinematic compositions have been nominatedfor the Scottish Album of the Year Award and been awarded BBC Radio 6 Music’s Gideon Coe’s Album of the Year. He has collaborated with former National Poet for Scotland, Liz Lochhead, and written soundtracks for Radio 4. Perman’s work as a musician and DJ has taken him across the world, with numerous record releases under his own name and with experimental group/arts collective FOUND, alongside visual works at the Sydney Opera House and National Museum of Scotland.
‘Ash Grey And The Gull Glides On’ is the pair’s first collaborative album as a duo. The record is rooted in Perman's ambient-acid-house grooves and multi-textural percussion built from sampling the knocks, clangs and creaks of Wasylyk’s upright piano. These are woven through a palette of drum machines, rolling transcendental piano motifs, fluttering synthesisers, saxophones swells and hymnal choral vocals.
Approaching the meditative ten-song collection, Tommy posted Andrew three envelopes containing ‘Recording Instructions’, ‘Tempo Cards’ and ‘Chord Cards’. Nodding towards the Fluxus instructions of Yoko Ono’s Grapefruit and the environmental cues of Perman and Wasylyk’s collaboration on Sing the Gloaming (‘If it’s wet outside: 100bpm. If it’s dry outside: 70bpm’) the cards inspired exploration and improvisations which were then cut up and collaged.
The spirit of this project channels through ‘Communal Imagination’ as Wasylyk’s trademark airy piano chords float above Perman’s juddering rhythms, conjuring a Balaeric abstraction of Basil Kirchin. The group brass and stuttering echoes of ‘Root Grow Emerge’ are accompanied by field recordings of Tommy’s children playing and reciting cyclical chants. ‘Blessing Of The Banners’ slowly unspools through spiritual cinematic jazz patterns into a hymn of hope, whilst ‘Spec Of Dust Becomes A Beam’ ignites into an expansive, kosmiche four-to-the-floor crescendo.
A sense of warmth, openness and curiosity floods through ‘Ash Grey And The Gull Glides On’. A document of forward-thinking artistic union from a pair at the height of their imaginations, perched over the Tay estuary.
“So leave us as you found us, walk with us or around us, you might find nothing to see here, but come tomorrow we’ll still be here,” warmly warns Aidan Moffat (Arab Strap) over ascending chords on the album’s closing track ‘Be the Hammer’: a mantra of quiet defiance from idiosyncratic composers in full flight. Liminal, illuminating ideas landing where melody meets rhythm: ‘Ash Grey And The Gull Glides On’ is a place where community, love and goodness prevail.
The orange vinyl is available directly from Clay Pipe through Greedbag & Bandcamp and also from all good record shops. If you order through Greedbag you will get a free print by Frances Castle. There are enamel badges and our usual CD/LP/Badge bundle through both Greedbag and Bandcamp. CDs available across the board.
Monorail in Glasgow and Assai in Dundee have limited signed 'Ash Grey' editions that each come with a different booklet of Tommy Permans artwork. Monorail's book showcases stills from the videos Tommy has done for this project, and Assai's displays his graphics for the tour posters.
All vinyl copies come with a Bandcamp download code in the sleeve.
