A Broken Consort - Crow Autumn

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Customer reviews
Press release
Soundclips
Tracklist
Videos

A1 - Day Reveals
A2 - A Mercy Kill
A3 - Like Rain
A4 - Mountains Ash
B1 - The River
B2 - Beneath
B3 - Leaves

Note: videos may not match the album...

5...according to our Brian on Thu 11 Feb, 2010.

Richard Skelton is a really busy chap of late, recordings under his own name & the ABC moniker flying out of the door like rabid pigeons on crack. His use of layered violins & accordian that collide, chatter & swoop around like leaves blowing in a breezy chamber is best enjoyed on headphones. I'm especially drawn into this haunting melee on 'A Mercy Kill', the first beaut to arrive after the brief intro. It's a really graceful and intoxicating piece of music that comes at you from all angles, enveloping you but forcing you to subconsiously dart around in your own mind attempting to pre empt which direction the strings will dart from next: this being virtually impossible & slightly preposterous. But you can't help it. Just close your eyes & listen to the majesty! Distant violin hauntingly billows from across a void on 'Like Rain' whilst a piano tinkles ponderously like said raindrops. The next two tracks are epics, still within the textured chamber music vein, absolutely gorgeous pieces that ebb & flow, seemingly building towards an ever powerful crescendo. There's supposed to be mandolin & guitar employed on this album & where you can hear brief hints, it really is predominantly a meisterwork for strings. By far the most impressive thing i've heard by him, a cherishable modern classical genius!

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Crow Autumn is the latest album by English composer Richard Skelton, who releases haunting and evocative music under a variety of guises through his own much-acclaimed Sustain-Release Private Press. From Clouwbeck to Heidika, Carousell to Riftmusic, his recordings brim with intensity and stark beauty, redolent of the landscapes that inspire them. Recording here as A Broken Consort – his most prolific and successful pseudonym – Skelton expertly builds on the achievements of last year's Box Of Birch, creating a dense-yet-delicate weave of textures from a broad palette of acoustic instruments, including guitar, mandolin, piano, violin and accordion. The result is a stunning sequence of swells and eddies, culminating in the orchestral intensity of 'The River', with its torrent of interleaved violin melodies and seething undertow. Originally released in two installments on the artist's own label, this special edition for Tompkins Square distills the essence of those recordings into a coherent whole, and augments them with new material, including the beautifully elegiac 'Like Rain', and the brooding coda of 'Leaves'. With Crow Autumn, Skelton has created a work of enduring beauty that should firmly establish him as one of England's most uniquely talented contemporary artists, capable of rendering with a fine brush the visceral majesty of the natural landscape.

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