Art and Music - The Saatchi Gallery Magazine
(Read in Hi-Res HERE)
(Read in Hi-Res HERE)
(Read in Hi-Res HERE)
Label of Love - Record Collector.
(Read in Hi-Res HERE)
Reviews for Vic Mars - The Land and the Garden.
Terrascope:Using a palette of woodwinds, strings, pianos, guitars, glockenspiels, chimes and hammered dulcimers amongst others. He has crafted some delightful pastoral tunes, rural and nostalgic, that remind me of a gentler time. Resonant of the English landscape that so influenced these recordings. He has created a wonderful set of songs/tunes, that when listened to as a whole come together as one.
The Wire
The Active Listener This is hugely ambitious and beautifully realised, neo-classical electronic/organic chamber music with mellotron (and associated ‘natural’ tape hiss) at the centre of much of the action going on. This is the sound of memory – a psycho-geographical survey of his British homeland largely dreamt up when Vic was way out east in Japan. Part real, part myth, part imagined and refracted back through the looking glass of time. This is no derivative, niche hauntology offering.
DAO Fortuitously, the Clay Pipe musical stable is filled with the talent to match that of Castle’s own and Vic Mars (who must, by now, be wondering how the hell this is a review about him?) is very much to be counted among that number.
Reviews for Sharron Kraus - Friends and Enemies; Lovers and Strangers.
Folk Radio UK: ‘a highly original collection of compositions which can be enjoyed as a folk album like any other, but which repays a much closer listening to reveal a depth of understanding of its sources which shines a light on a classic text too often overlooked’
The Active Listener: ‘As otherworldly as the folk tales that inspired the music, this is an album that demands complete, rapt attention and careful listening … I cannot recommend this album highly enough.’
Terrascope Online: ‘Whilst the album features an array of instruments that add depth and texture to the songs, at its heart lies the unique and beautiful voice and songwriting of Sharron Kraus, this collection being, quite possibly, her finest to date, each song shining like sunlight on a distant mountain top, timeless and captivating.’
fRoots (May 2015): ‘a beautifully recorded and immensely atmospheric record, full of alternative tunings, dark modes and devils’ intervals.’
Bright Young Folk: ‘Friends and Enemies; Lovers and Strangers is an album that gives up its secrets slowly. It takes a few listens to get to grips with these deceptively simple songs, but the time and effort involved is more than worth it. An album to live with and to savour.’
BLISS Aquamarine: ‘The songwriting is contemporary, and whilst the harp, recorder and dulcimer arrangements are evocative of the medieval era when the tales from the Mabinogion were written down, the overall feel is not one of aping the past, but of using the past as a starting point for creative innovation.’
Daily Information: ‘What a magnificent album! Sharron Kraus’ latest album is influenced by her long stay in rural mid-Wales and is a retelling, in English, of some stories in the Mabinogion, a collection of stories written in Medieval Welsh. But far from being set in the past, these stories of love, betrayal, migrations and magic continue to resonate today.’
Norman Records: 7/10 ‘Friends and Enemies; Lovers and Strangers has a particular strand of folk DNA in it, a type that sounds ancient and conceives of a time long gone. Kraus’ interpretation, though, is fresh and crystalline, both recorded and performed as if these were wholly new stories.’
Sly Vinyl
Atalho de Sons (in Portugese)
Music Won’t Save You (in Italian)
Jon Brooks - 'Shapwick' - The Sunday Times.
Jon Brooks - 'Shapwick' - Record Collector
Other reviews of Shapwick:
Drowned in Sound, The Quietus.Darren Hayman - 'Lido' - Mojo.
Other Reviews of Lido:
Article on Lido in Time Out.
Frances Castle/Jarvis Cocker - Dazed and Confused.
