Clay Pipe is delighted to have The Hardy Tree, David Boulter, and Richard Bundy and Anna Phoebe performing as part of The Malvern Line-Up Festival at the Malvern Cube, Albert Road North, Malvern, WR14 2YF, on Saturday 3 October.
With The Clientele headlining, it promises to be a magical day of music.
Tickets and more info HERE
Now available to pre-order from:
*Due to new custom charges please use Greedbag or HHV if ordering from the EU
Clay Pipe Music is thrilled to welcome back Oliver Cherer with a new Gilroy Mere album Furlongs.
Since his 2023 album Gilden Gate, Ollie has kept himself busy. He has recorded an album and toured internationally with the Miki Berenyi Trio, and played bass in Lol Tolhurst’s band. Alongside this, he has made three albums with Hastings-based group Aircooled, and performed live with them in support of The Jesus and Mary Chain and Suede. He has also collaborated with long-time writing partner Riz Maslen on the soundtrack for Magick Hastings, a film by Michael Smith.
In early 2025, Ollie was diagnosed with cancer and had to cut short a tour to return home, travelling daily to Brighton Hospital for radiotherapy treatment.
“Every day for six weeks I made the forty mile train journey from my home in St-Leonard's-on-Sea along the foot of the Downs, passing the Long Man twice a day. With my laptop and some headphones, I filled the journey time making music. Cutting through the landscape that Eric Ravilious had painted 90 years earlier, the muted colours and undulations became textures, tempos and modulations. After more than a month immersed in his scenery, my laptop sketches crystalized into something that began to sound like a record, and by the end of the six weeks, I had more than enough material for this album.
Many of the pieces on this record were inspired by specific paintings that were already familiar to me, while others are reactions to the landscape gently swooshing past the windows of the train and which I knew from walking its footpaths with an ordnance survey map in hand. Furlongs is the name of the cottage where Eric and his wife Tirzah often stayed, and where he created many of his paintings. Beachy Head and Chalk Paths are tributes to well-known Ravilious works, whereas Hope Gap is an exploration of a place with an isolated coastal bleakness that I felt reflected the sadness of his early death in 1942, on an RAF search and rescue mission over the Icelandic sea.
While finishing the recordings I called on friends to help out on a few pieces which lead to contributions from Helen Edwards on clarinet, Hutch Demoulpied on trumpet and flute and stalwart collaborator Riz Maslen on flute and vocal. It was all written on the train and recorded in my studio, The Laundry, in St Leonard's on Sea.”
Almost a year after diagnosis Olly was given the all clear, and is now back at work touring, recording and playing music.
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From The Edge is a long-form musical work shaped by the acoustics, history, and atmosphere of Dover.
Conceived by Kent-based composers Richard Bundy and Anna Phoebe, and supported by a host of other musicians and artists, the album sits at the heart of their Dover Unlocked project — a body of work that reimagines and quietly subverts the accepted narrative of this UK coastal border town.
At its core is a simple idea: to use music to open up hidden, overlooked historic spaces and let them be heard again. These include sites such as the Grand Shaft - a Napoleonic-era spiral staircase that descends 140 feet through the iconic chalk cliffs - as well as St Edmund’s Chapel, the Maison Dieu, and Fort Burgoyne, built in the 1860s to guard the high ground just north of Dover Castle.
The project is rooted in the act of performing within these places. Each space has its own character and resonance, which affects the sound and influences the performance within it. The music itself takes many forms, from the delicate acoustic and electronic textures of the opening passages to the rhythmic intensity of the Sacconi Quartet recorded in St Edmund’s Chapel. Anna Phoebe’s violin weaves through the LP, linking dusty electronic beats and choral voices, while Richard Bundy’s piano adds moments of expressive clarity. Beyond the music, the outside world - like the A20 road - seeps into the recordings, becoming an unseen performer. Jazz drums, uptempo synths, and resonant bass combine to create a world where history and music intertwine.
Richard Bundy toured the world for more than 30 years as a musician and Musical Director, collaborating with many well-known artists. He now composes music for film, as well as creating neo-classical and ambient works. His credits include the score for The Protagonist, which was shown at the Cannes Film Festival.
Anna Phoebe is a violinist, composer, and broadcaster whose work blends contemporary classical, electronic, and experimental music. She co-hosts the much-loved Radio 4 show Add to Playlist and creates immersive album and score projects that are both raw and cinematic. Her work has featured across Apple TV+, Channel 4, Netflix, ITV and the BBC, and has been championed by BBC 6 Music, BBC Radio 3 and KEXP.
The Dover Unlocked project became more than live performances, more than the creation of an album, more than a film. Ultimately, it became the unlocking of a town through time - and that town was waiting to be heard.
Angel Pavements - D. Rothon
Available from
A limited edition Mini CD inspired by twentieth-century London literature
Clay Pipe welcomes back D. Rothon with four signature instrumental compositions featuring his beautiful pedal steel and keyboards as well as contributions from regular collaborators Hilary Robinson and Johanna Warren. Created to mark Clay Pipe’s event at Soho Poly in London, this new Mini CD gathers four pieces inspired by the London novels of the likes of James Curtis and Patrick Hamilton, which strongly evoke a largely forgotten yet distantly familiar world.
“For years I’ve enjoyed hunting down novels of everyday London life – and low life – especially from the early-to-mid 20th century. It all started with James Curtis’s brilliant The Gilt Kid – a charity shop punt – then tracking down his other books and any others vaguely like them. I’ve already stolen a few titles for tracks on my other Clay Pipe releases, but thought it was time I did a whole set of pieces based around this theme. On Angel Pavements the track names are taken not just from book titles but also chapters or quotes lifted from the text. “
Pre-order the 2nd pressing in golden-yellow sleeve from -
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For his new album, Irreparable Parables, Andrew Wasylyk felt a strong desire to write a set of songs featuring an element hitherto rare in his work: the human voice. Equally strong was the conviction that he did not want to sing them himself.
The Scottish multi-instrumentalist and composer set about assembling a group of guest singers, sending out the songs to wherever they were in the world. The vocals were recorded remotely and then, like migrating birds, winged their way back to Scotland. The result is an album of great beauty which, perhaps preeminently in Wasylyk’s work, expresses the vulnerability and resilience of the human spirit.
Six singers appear on the record, represented by six songbirds illustrated on the sleeve by Clay Pipe Music’s Frances Castle. The cuckoo is a nod to Belle and Sebastian’s 2004 single ‘I’m A Cuckoo’, that band’s Stuart Murdoch being the first voice you hear on the new album. When the vocal for ‘Private Symphony #2’ arrived, says Wasylyk, “it was everything that I was looking for and more. But this is Stuart Murdoch. Of course he’s going to make something incredibly beautiful and thoughtful.”
The song lyrics were, for the most part, written by the singers. The music is Wasylyk’s creation. He navigates a sound world that lies somewhere beyond the borders of classical and jazz, ambient and abstract. It is difficult to describe, but easy to understand, which is to say to feel. That is the way Wasylyk’s work is experienced: as a feeling. It takes you back to childhood, perhaps, to feelings of comfort and safety, or to memories of walks at sunrise and sunset, or to the way a shadow falls on a particular field in a particular place at a particular time in your life. This is consoling music. That is why, though pretty, it is not merely pretty. These are songs to shore up the soul.
Wasylyk writes in a room, in his native Dundee, full of “half-broken” instruments. He picks these up, plays a little, seeking an idea, a feeling, a door that lies ajar. The musical palette of Irreparable Parables includes brass and woodwind, a six-piece string section, guitar, bass, drums, vibraphone, Mellotron, Fender Rhodes, tape loops, synthesisers and percussion. The strings were arranged by the cellist Pete Harvey, a long-term collaborator.
Among the other guest vocalists are Gruff Rhys of the Super Furry Animals, Saya Ueno from Japan’s Tenniscoats and Peter Brewis from Field Music. Wasylyk himself takes the lead vocal on the title track, though a throat infection and touch of pitch-shifting have altered his singing in a way that even he, having fallen out of love with his own voice, finds acceptable.
The heart of the record can, arguably, be found in two tracks, ‘Love Is A Life That Lasts Forever’ and ‘Spectators In The Absence of God’, sung respectively by Molly Linen and Kathryn Joseph. The former, bright with trumpets, was inspired by the writing of Derek Jarman. “I was feeling deeply upset about the world and wanted to try and write something that was obviously hopeful,” Wasylyk says.
‘Spectators …’ offers an emotional counterpoint. It is an “apocalyptic hymn” that seems to grapple with watching human suffering from afar, too distant to be at physical risk, but experiencing the psychological wounding, and feelings of helplessness, even complicity, that come with constant awareness of other people’s pain. “Kathryn’s a pal, I love her dearly, and she’s a brilliant artist who really feels what she writes,” Wasylyk says. “The cracked tenderness of her voice is spellbinding.”
The album closes with an instrumental piece, ‘Soul Enters The Ocean Sun Climbs Out Of The Sea’, all piano and strings, that offers a sense of resolution and ascension. A good moment, too, for Wasylyk to reflect upon the artistic companionship that he enjoyed while making this record – the songbirds that answered his call: “These humans are incredible at what they do. I’m deeply grateful and feel so lucky. It blows my mind.”
‘Irreparable Parables’, released Friday 6th March, 2026 through Clay Pipe Music & State 51 on vinyl, CD & digital.
Clay Pipe Bundle (only from the label) includes vinyl of Irreparable Parables, vinyl of Inundated Indentations - an enamel badge and signed cards by Stuart Murdoch, Molly Linen and Gruff Rhys. 100 copies. SOLD OUT
SOLD OUT
As the days get shorter and the winter solstice approaches, here are a few seasonal offerings from Clay Pipe to hopefully give you some cheer. All items are available from our Greedbag and Bandcamp shops.
Oneiric by Rural Tapes
LP/CD/DL
Available from Bandcamp and Greedbag
“It’s such a listenable album, weird and woozie in
places, clear and direct in others. Just like your dreams… I’ll wager
you’ll find yourself listening to it two or three times in a row the
first time you put it on”
Moonbuilding
“A masterclass in eclecticism”
Shindig!
“A pupil-flicking riot of joyous befuddlement”
Electronic Sound
“TNT-period Tortoise with a nostalgically psychedelic twist”
Uncut
“Blissed-out sounds with a few chills from Nordic dreamweaver”
Prog Magazine
“Songs presenting themselves as wistful meditations, and others transporting the listener to realms beyond our comprehension”
Far Out Magazine
Read an interview with Arne on the Clay Pipe SubStack
His new record Oneiric is one for the dreamers - a trippy, cosmic aural experience of mostly instrumental music, recorded on analogue equipment at his Nygrenda Vev & Dur studio in rural Norway. Arne is also joined on two vocal tracks by long-time collaborators Alexis Taylor (Hot Chip) and Gary Olson (The Ladybug Transistor).
He says: “The word Oneiric refers to things connected with dreams. I've drawn inspiration from the strange, surreal, humorous, imaginative, and vividly colourful experiences that often unfold within them.”
“I have played with genres, sounds and timbres and put together pieces of music that I think could be the soundtrack to a dream sequence. I love the way a dream can be so bizarre and yet still feel so natural, and I can relate to that otherworldliness in the way I compose and put together musical pieces. Some songs have a clear structure, some have not, some are minimalist, some are maximalist, some are wistful and some are joyful, but I think all of them are quite colourful and playful.”
“I’ve taken inspiration from many different music eras and many different corners of the world, from quirky British music to French dream pop to the 60s New York tape music scene to ambient and psychedelic music. The music is created hands on using old analogue gear such as tape machines, dictaphones, tape echoes and more to colour the music and give the sounds the right textures. This way I feel connected to the music I make.”
Over the past two decades, Arne has established himself as a key figure in the Norwegian music scene. He has played in influential bands including I Was A King and Heroes & Zeros, and more recently has been releasing music and playing live with The No Ones — alongside Peter Buck and Scott McCaughey and The Minus 5, and I Was A King frontman Frode Strømstad.
He
launched his Rural Tapes
project in 2021 with
a self-titled debut which
established
his reputation for inventive, forward-thinking music. He
has continued to draw
widespread praise
across subsequent releases, including Inner
Space Music (2022)
and Contact
(2024).
10" Vinyl/CD/DL
Vinyl back in stock in Greedbag
CDs available from Bandcamp and Greedbag
David Boulter, best known as a long-time member of Tindersticks, returns to Clay Pipe Music with Whitby - an evocative mini-album inspired by the stark beauty and unsettling calm of England’s North Yorkshire coast.
Unlike the familiar seaside towns of his youth - Great Yarmouth, Scarborough, Filey - Whitby held no particular memories for Boulter until he visited with his family in the summer of 2024. "I’m constantly inspired by my surroundings, or memories of them," he says. "Sat on an almost deserted beach, halfway between Whitby and Sandsend, it really hit me. The absolute beauty - and how alien it seemed. It was quite a stormy day: grey skies coming in off the North Sea, sun breaking through. The way the light hit the rocks, scattered across the beach; the waves crashing. Walking up to the ruined Abbey at sunset, again almost deserted. I imagined human life disappeared."
That sense of stillness and natural drama became the emotional core of the album. "At a time when it seems we are pushing our planet to the edge, and the wars we rage continue, I felt such calm and connection to the landscape - and how simple beauty can be. The whale bones on the hill reminded me how we always take so much. But we can change."
As with much of his work, Boulter began composing in response to these experiences. On Whitby, the music takes on a more organic quality than his previous releases. While he initially made field recordings of the environment, he later chose to reinterpret them musically - using instrumentation to evoke the atmosphere of the coast: sitting on the beach, walking up by the Abbey, tracing the path of the old Cinder Track railway line.
The result is a quietly powerful musical meditation on history, landscape, and the enduring presence of nature.
