AR - Wolf Notes

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Customer reviews
Press release

3...according to our Clinton on Fri 10 Jun, 2011.

At the Six Organs of Admittance show last night, Phil looked across at the audience and every single man had a beard. I'm not sure what that says about the music, or beards or the people who wear them or if it has anything to do with this review. This is a collaboration between Richard Skelton (bearded) and Autumn Richardson (presumably not bearded). It's basically string drones overlaid with vocals. The string drones are beautiful and evocative. The vocals I'm less sure about. She has a beautiful voice, that's a fact, but I find the warbling tone a bit busy for the simple minimal arrangements. You just have to be so careful with vocal arrangements on such tracks - less is more is usually the mantra and as the track progresses there are lovely cymbal bowing and further strings creating a glorious atmosphere. The vocals become less prominent but to me they should be used even less or buried further in the mix, instead they sit on top and it just doesn't feel right to me and becomes very wearing indeed. A flip over of the record seemingly sees the same track continuing ad nauseam to the point that I've had to move the stylus on to the final two tracks which are much more quiet and subdued. What this record seems to be doing over its five tracks is that the first and fourth and fifth seem to be the distant beginnings and ends whilst the second 'Rise' and the third 'Decline' are the record's centrepiece. The closer 'Return' is probably the best thing on here beginning with beautiful violin drones layered up to shimmering effect. The vocals, though still with operatic tendencies, are more subtle and fit in beautifully with the strings. A wonderful closer which has pretty much saved the record for me. Originally released in a limited CDr version of 200 this is a limited repress in a sleeve with a pretty view of a Lake District hill and the record is dedicated to the landscape, flora and fauna of Ulpha in Cumbria and Jay Z.

* AR is the collaborative project of Richard Skelton and Autumn Richardson
“Wolf Notes” was originally released in a limited edition CD run of 200 copies on Skelton’s own Sustain-Release imprint earlier in the year.

* Cut at Dubplates & Mastering in Berlin, pressed up in a limited edition of 500 copies for the world.

* Originally published in a limited CD edition of merely two hundred copies, ‘Wolf Notes’ is the debut album from *AR, the collaborative project of Autumn Richardson and Richard Skelton. While both are already accomplished solo musicians, ‘Wolf Notes’ marks a stunning new chapter in their canon, and like all great collaborations takes the finest elements of each, moulding it into a pitch-perfect whole.

* Those of you familiar with Skelton’s previous works, most notably ‘Landings’, might be surprised to hear that the central instrument on ‘Wolf Notes’ is the human voice. Autumn Richardson’s glassy, lilting echoes haunt the record like distant spirits, with her melodies kneaded and obscured by Skelton’s patented treatments and signature strings. The central theme is established with relative ease, but is allowed to shift like the tides, pushing and pulling throughout the record’s duration. ‘Wolf Notes’ might be split into five distinct parts, but they are all simply sections in a very defined whole, and are not intended to be heard in isolation from one another.

* At times you might get the feeling that this is music being piped through from another era – music untouched by the tragedy and disappointment of our development as a race. It is music mercifully free of the tropes that trip us up and the trends that scratch on the grubby windows of the music scene. ‘Wolf Notes’ is music dedicated to the natural world, to the remnants of civilisation rather than modern mistakes, and listening to it feels like a rare, beautiful privilege.