Richard Moult - Celestial King For A Year

Our review
Customer reviews
Press release
Soundclips

5...according to our Ant on Thu 05 May, 2011.

As with all releases on this imprint, the packaging is lovingly created and most deluxe. On this occasion a fold out black envelope with printed wrap around closing strip containing postcard insert. The audio comes in three parts, simply labeled parts I-III. The three pieces are for string quintet, voice and electronics. Moult himself handles mellotron and electronics while Ben Sansom, John Cheshire Joiner and Isobel Found play violin. Viola duties are handled in fine style by Alexandria Lawrence and Henry Pye. The strings on the first part are really quite beautiful and handled with respect by the composer. Part II is a construction of processed string work and Jessica Constable's voice, which has a remarkable, haunting, delicate ethereal quality which is further enhanced by the layering and reassembling of Moult's post production. The final part clocks in at just over nineteen minutes and is a masterclass in restrained, stark beauty. An esssential addition to your collection if you've been following this label.

To play these clips you need to either update your browser (Norman Records recommends Google Chrome) or update your Flash plugin.

Composer, painter and poet Richard Moult is the Newcastle-born author of innumerable songs, miscellaneous musical settings, field recordings and works for solo piano and classical ensembles, with a clutch of beneath-the-radar-albums and EPs to his name. Richard is also known for his work with the group Far Black Furlong and for collaborations with the David Tibet’s apocalyptic folk mavens Current 93, Irish psych-folk band United Bible Studies and Dorset sound sculptors Plinth.

His debut for Second Language, is a three-movement suite of stark, immersive, beauty. Celestial King For A Year began life as a work for string quintet but was gradually pared back to a numinous essence. “I wanted to write something spacious and to my mind, completely spiritual”, says Richard. “I took as my influence very early Christian chant ('Old Roman' - circa 6th Century AD), but I wanted to strip the work down even more, doing away with any rhythmic and harmonic embellishments and creating something that seems quite static, quite still. I then expanded the work to include two extra movements for voice, strings and electronics.”
The album is named after a poem of Richard’s and refers to the seasonal cycle and how offerings were once made to the fields in order to propitiate the gods. While the music doesn’t seek to literally describe any specific ritual/seasonal fest, it was Richard’s aim to, “try and presence a general 'pagan' sense of the sacred”. That he has succeeded magisterially in his aspiration is evinced by even a cursory listen to this haunting, compelling album.

Celestial King For A Year comes in a hand-made envelope with a postcard of Richard's painting of harpist Áine O' Dwyer.

Limited edition of 300 copies.

Be the first to review this record. Best reviewer each month gets £10 off their next order!