David Boulter - St Ann's

 

 

David Boulter - St Ann's

LP/CD/DL + Enamel badge

500 hand numbered purple vinyl copies

Pre-orders from 26th April 2024

Release 7th June 2024

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Join Clay Pipe Music and David Boulter for a Bandcamp listening party on Wednesday 24th April, at 8.00 pm UK time. Pre-orders will be open while the party is on. RSVP HERE

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Clay Pipe is pleased to welcome back the Tinderstick’s keyboard player David Boulter to the label.

Since his Yarmouth LP in 2020, and the spoken word-based Lovers Walk the following year, Boulter has concentrated on his soundtrack work. He has produced scores for documentary maker Volkan Üce’s Displaced – and Tinnitus, a visually striking film by Brazilian director Gregorio Graziosi. He has also released a series of lathe-cuts featuring his soundtrack work, and the Factory Mini CD and Twelve Bells for Libuše flexi-disc single on Clay Pipe.

St Ann’s, is a tribute to the council estate, on the edge of Nottingham city centre that defined Boulter’s formative years:

“I was born in the old St Ann’s. Famously documented in the late 60s as some of the poorest social housing in England. Crumbling, cramped, and full of damp. We had a shared toilet in the backyard and no bathroom, some of the houses were without hot water, it was freezing cold in winter. Everything seemed black and white.”

By the late 1960s, St. Ann's, like many other city centre areas, had become run down and was earmarked by the council for slum clearance. 340 acres were bulldozed and 30,000 people including David's family were compulsorily uprooted. In 1970 the Victorian streets were replaced with a Radburn-style estate. 

 “We moved to the new St Ann’s when I was six. There were two indoor toilets! A bathroom with a shiny white ceramic bath that you could fill whenever you wanted. Central heating, and a small garden at the front and back of the house. We had our own shed, and a cherry blossom tree just over the fence. Everything came into colour.”

Subtle use of guitar, double bass, vibraphone, tenor recorder and field recordings conjure up the old streets of cobble and slate, damp brickwork and grey skies, juxtaposing the newer post-1960s world of pebble dash and green grass, fresh air and a brighter future.

“After we moved to the new house, I still went to the old Victorian school, until it was demolished about a year later. It was very strange to walk to school through all the old houses and streets while they were being torn apart.”

This is a record full of personal memories, but it also tells the tale of Britain’s inner cities and their renewal in the 60s and 70s.

“At the end of 2022, my Mum could no longer live alone in our house. I spent Christmas packing belongings and emptying it, what to keep, what not to keep? The emotions and memories were intense. There was still the same carpet on the stairs that my Dad had put down when we’d moved in. 

I’d already started to make some music that I knew had something to do with Nottingham, and the streets I’d spent my childhood wandering. When I arrived back home in Prague, the feelings poured into the music.

I grew up in St Ann’s and lived around the area until I left for London when I was 25. This LP is a celebration of a community, streets that still hold a special place in my heart. I will always be from St Ann’s and St Ann’s will always be a part of me.“

 

 

A 'Corporation Oaks' enamel badge will be available to buy, and included with the CD/LP bundle.

Andrew Wasylyk | Tommy Perman. Communal Imagination.

 

 Download: Bandcamp | Boomkat | Qobuz Stream:  Apple Music | Spotify |  YouTube

 

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'Communal Imagination’ is the new single by Scottish composers Andrew Wasylyk and Tommy Perman. The pair have orbited each other's worlds for a number of years through audio-visual collaborations spanning record releases, films and sound installations. With their first collaborative album as a duo expected later in the year on Clay Pipe Music, the spirit of the project channels through on ‘Communal Imagination’. Wasylyk’s trademark searching piano chords float above Perman’s distinct juddering rhythms, conjuring a Balaeric abstraction of Basil Kirchin. Elsewhere, saxophones and choral vocals climb above fluttering Juno synths in a
unifying chorus.

UK Tour, 2024

Tickets on sale 10am, Friday 19 April:
www.thegullglideson.co.uk

04 Aug - Fringe By The Sea, North Berwick
29 Aug - Playhouse, Montrose
06 Sept - The Glad Cafe, Glasgow
07 Sept - Chaplaincy Centre, Dundee
08 Sept - The Blue Lamp, Aberdeen
10 Sept - Hyde Park Book Club, Leeds
11 Sept - Gullivers, Manchester
12 Sept - Hare & Hounds, Birmingham
13 Sept - The Crofter's Rights, Bristol
14 Sept - The Lexington, London
15 Sept - Real Magic Books, Wendover
17 Sept - The Cumberland Arms, Newcastle
18 Sept - Kazimiere Stockroom, Liverpool
19 Sept - Ilkley Vaults, Ilkley, West Yorkshire
20 Sept - Summerhall, Edinburgh 

    

Video by Tommy Perman

Garden Gate - Magic Lantern

 

 

 CDs and digital from BANDCAMP or GREEDBAG 

Still some Vinyl at: HHV

 Bandcamp download code in LP sleeve

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Vinyl copies with a limited holographic sticker are still available for vistors to the Clay Pipe studio shop London E3 2JQ. Drop me a line first if you are planning a vist.

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Clay Pipe is pleased to introduce Garden Gate, the musical project of North Country, New York-based artist Timmi Meskers. 

After her time with Brown Recluse, a bittersweet psych-pop sextet, and White Candles, a Radiophonic Workshop-inspired electronic duo, Meskers merged the qualities of both groups into a new project and the first Garden Gate single, Houses, appeared in 2016 on Good Behavior Records. Following this, came a clutch of acclaimed releases on labels such as Sunstone and Library of the Occult, notably The Dark Harvest LP (which received a 5-star review in Shindig) and the sought-after 2021 LP, Blood Mansion, an original score for a conceptual horror film.

Magic Lantern is a collection of melancholy yet hopeful neoclassical library pieces with analogue electronic elements that originally soundtracked Audible Originals’ Strange Company audiobook. 

Here, Timmi explains how the project came about:

“The first glimmer of Magic Lantern flickered over the kitchen sink, if memory serves. I was cleaning up with a dear friend, author Roan Parrish, and we were discussing how we could collaborate creatively. Our first idea was that she would share prose to inspire my themes, and inversely, I would share a few original themes to inspire her writing. Before we knew it, what started as a handful of stories and songs, damp with soap suds, ended up becoming a fully scored audiobook anthology for Audible Originals called Strange Company.

As a long-time fan of soundtracks and library music, I was thrilled by the opportunity to see just how much emotion I could compress into the brief connecting links that would augment a furtive kiss, a painful psychic vision, or a breeze across the bones of a scorched landscape.

Midway through the recording process, my long-term relationship broke down, and Roan let me set up a field studio in her home. I found myself grasping at any beauty I could find in the hope that it would spill into the music. Several themes from an unrealised Garden Gate album about the life of Dion Fortune also found their way in (notably, the title track), and the score became a bit more personal than initially charted. In the doomed outsiders of Roan’s gorgeously creeping prose, it was hard not to see aspects of my own life, and I found catharsis and healing in the creation of the music that soundtracked her characters' lives.” 

Timmi Meskers 2024

 

D. Rothon - Lonesome Echoes

 

 

  3inch Mini CD in bespoke case.

Bandcamp download code in sleeve.

Cut out and keep A4 library box. 

£11 BUY

After the sell out success of the first series of Mini-CDs, Clay Pipe kicks off the second series with D.Rothons 'Lonesome Echoes'.

D. Rothon’s third solo release for Clay Pipe, Lonesome Echoes, is a selection of four beautiful melodic instrumentals, featuring pedal steel, Omnichord, theremin, flute and live drums – and inspired by the long-lost south London village of Lonesome.

“My curiosity about Lonesome started years ago when I noticed the name on the map in the London A to Z, not far from where I grew up. It seemed such an unlikely name. But it wasn't until recently that I discovered its slightly odd history…”

The origins of its name lost in the mists of time, the village of Lonesome emerged in the 19th century from the swampy, isolated lands between Streatham Vale and Mitcham Common. By the early 1900s intrepid reporters were already speculating on whether the place was mere myth.

The intervening years saw the rapid rise and fall of Lonesome. Its prospects as a desirable place to live were compromised by the combined fragrances of piggeries plus chemical, fireworks and gas mantle factories – which would undoubtedly have overpowered the sweeter aromas from the nearby lavender fields of Mitcham. It also gained a reputation as a haunt of footpads, vagabonds and cutpurses. 

A failed development by one “Squire Blake” of aspirational middle class villas – which became known as Blake's Folly – helped cement Lonesome’s reputation as a ghost town.

Now long subsumed into suburbia, aside from the odd street and building name little trace remains of Lonesome.

 

Also in the shop Clay Pipe 2024 calender*, Gilroy Mere 'Gilden Gate' Giclee prints and new black T-shirts.

*initial copies sold out pre-order second run via Bandcamp

Vic Mars - The Beacons

 

LP £20.99 / CD  £11.00

LP: 600 hand numbered copies

Bandcamp download in sleeve

Digital through all streaming services and Bandcamp

Clay Pipe Music is thrilled to announce The Beacons by Vic Mars - the enigmatic producers third full length LP for the label. Since 2019s Inner Roads and Outer Paths his music has found a new audience having been used as the soundtrack to the game I am Dead by British interactive studio Hollow Ponds.

While his previous two albums were inspired by the pastoral landscapes of Herefordshire, The Beacons, embarks on a journey westward into Wales, inviting listeners into the rugged terrain of the Brecon Beacons and the Black Mountains. Using a darker sonic palette, and pushing the sound of the Moog synthesizer to the fore, The Beacons captures the feel of mountains silhouetted against dramatic skies, craggy summits and the overall grandeur of the landscape and its rich folklore.

Stories of plane crashes, a monument honouring a missing boy, and legends such the mysterious door within Llyn Cwm Llwch lake— said to open to an invisible island - all helped shape the making of the record. With the addition of live drums, viola, a Juno 60 and field recordings alongside his distinctive Mellotrons and flutes, Vic has explored new ground, but still maintains the melodic interest and home spun charm of his earlier records.

Although now based in London Vic grew up in Hereford, in winter time the distant ice capped peaks of the Beacons served as a childhood barometer, a hopeful indicator that the city might also be graced with snow. In better weather there were days out with family or friends, clambering up Pen-y-fan or visiting the beautiful waterfalls at Ystradfellte. All these formative experiences seep into the music on this record, weaving an enchanting spell that captures the vastness of the mountain ranges and the stories they tell.

A small repress of Vic Mars' second LP Inner Roads and Outer Paths on green vinyl will be available at the same time.

Clay Pipe will have pre-release copies of both LPs at the Jonny Trunk Groovy Record Fayre on the Saturday October 28th, The Mildmay Club, London, N16 9PR. Please let me know if you would like to reserve a copy.

 

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Scottish Album of the Year and Uncanny Landscapes

Clay Pipe is back from a short summer break, and very happy to announce that Andrew Wasylyk's Hearing the Water Before Seeing the Falls has made the long list for the Scottish Album of the Year. Congratulations to Andrew, it is very well deserved!

Also Frances Castle talked to Justin Hopper for his Uncanny Landscapes podcast, always worth a listen, it is available wherever you get your podcasts and via the Uncanny Landscapes Substack.

There are new releases coming this Autumn. Please stay tuned.

Cate Brooks - Easel Studies

 

       Cate Brooks - Easel Studies 
 Vinyl LP/ CD/ Badge   

Digital exclusive to Cafe Kaput's Bandcamp.  

CD and DL come with extra track “Pendula"
LP includes Bandcamp DL code in sleeve.

 

Cate Brooks is back with her seventh release for Clay Pipe Music. Never one to stand still, ‘Easel Studies’ finds her pushing the boundaries of sound synthesis and experimentation on the Buchla Music Easel while still sounding beautifully beguiling and hypnotically melodic.

“On this day in 2015, at exactly Midday, I took delivery of a wildly exotic musical instrument. To call it a synthesizer would be a misrepresentation; it’s really more of a tactile, living, breathing entity than anything else. It had originally supposed to have been delivered on the day before, but had somehow been mislaid in the labyrinths of the Royal Mail sorting office at Elephant and Castle.

I sat patiently and quietly all morning, waiting for its imminent arrival. I had already read through the ‘manual’, which is more of a concept / design for living, written by synthesis legend Allen Strange.

With Noon approaching, I became a little anxious- my local postie, Barrie, was usually here by about 10:30am and there was no sign of him.

At 11:58, Barrie walked past, completely ignoring my house. Obviously concerned, I stood at the door and waited for him to walk back toward his van. As he came back, he smiled and I called out, quizzically “Barrie?”. His reply was “Yes I have!” and walked back to his van, collecting a large box and bringing it to my door. I remember the weather was muggy and my neighbour was attending to her rose bushes, as the cheery and helpful postie deftly navigated around her busy secateurs.

I took the box inside, opened the top and just looked at the inner box for a while. I took a photo of it, which I still have. It felt like quite a momentous occasion, because I felt that this instrument would take me to different sonic spaces than I was used to. It wasn’t my first experience with Don Buchla’s instruments by any means, as I’d learned to use his 200e system. But this was quite a different beast.

My cat Brillo came to inspect the box and I set the Music Easel up on the floor and plugged it in. The result of that very first experiment became “Pendula”.

In the following days and weeks of that summer, I created many more experiments on the Easel, quite often with Brillo either sat on me as I played, or trying to climb up on the instrument itself, attempting to move the faders and switches himself.

By the end of August, I had amassed some thirty-something pieces, which I put aside for future reference. I had learned a lot about this instrument, its idiosyncrasies, subtleties and ways of working.

Sadly, Brillo died in September of 2015. I like to think that his last summer with me was a comforting experience, curling up and listening to the sonic experiments taking place, as he regularly did for the sixteen years he was with me. The first track on the album, “Con Brillo” is my little tribute to him.

Fast forward to 2021 and I rediscovered all of these experiments. Some were almost unlistenable, but some had a beguiling charm about them- perhaps the sound of someone not really knowing what they’re getting into. They needed mixing and balancing, so I set to work. I also wrote a new piece, with exactly the same recording chain, in the same way, in the same room. This became the suitably titled final track “Hindsight”. 

The Music Easel has remained a constant source of sonic worlds for me to explore. It became the main instrument on the album Agri Montana, for example and has cropped up on many other records I’ve made since.

I would especially like to thank David at Postmodular for selling the Music Easel to me, after phoning him and disturbing his Sunday afternoon outing to Hyde Park (sorry about that David). I always promised I would send him a copy of something I had produced on it, so hopefully he will enjoy Easel Studies.

As I finish writing this, I notice that it is, once more, exactly Midday. I hope you enjoy Easel Studies too.”

Cate Brooks (21st of May, 2023).

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Zyggurat - Broken Circle. Mini CD

 

  Zyggurat - Broken Circle.

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

300 copies.

SOLD OUT

Zyggurat is an electronic music project fronted by Pete Grimshaw on modular synthesizer featuring Piera Onacko on accordion, and Nathan England-Jones on drums. They have released two EPs "Beyond the Breaks" (2018) and "Earth II" (2020), as well as a self titled LP in 2022. The band have received acclaim for their skilful and spontaneous modular synth performances, drawing special praise for the sonic interplay between the synth work and the organic flow of the drums.

“The name ‘Zyggurat’ derives from the inverted ziggurat of Birmingham’s lost brutalist library, designed by John Madin. It was completed in 1974 and demolished in 2016, and ties in with Birmingham’s history for rebuilding and remodelling its architecture and cultural heritage. I treated the album as a journey though this cycle of destruction and regeneration. It comes down to feelings on the passage of time, utopian hopes, journeys, dreams, reclamation, and nostalgia. “ Pete Grimshaw 2023

“Lithe, evolving, lyrical, highly recommended!” - Dan Bean

“This is great, a proper trippy sea of synth-jazz” - James Holden

“I love the Zyggurat album. A flowing cosmic conversation between the modular synth and drums. Who ever knew such beautiful cosmic jazz would come from Birmingham” - Surgeon

“Highly recommend checking out Zyggurat” - Paddy Shine, Gnod

There will be launch shows for the CD in Birmingham and Hackney - we will be holding some CDs back to sell at these events. Drop me a line if you are coming to one of them and would like to reserve a CD.

Tickets for Hackney HERE

Tickets for Birmingham HERE