Richard Skelton
Encyclopedia
Biography
Richard Skelton is a BritishUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
musician. Following the death of his wife Louise in 2004, he began to make music as a way of coming to terms with the tragedy. Using a number of instruments, notably guitar and violin, his music has been compared to Arvo Pärt
Arvo Pärt
Arvo Pärt is an Estonian classical composer and one of the most prominent living composers of sacred music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has worked in a minimalist style that employs his self-made compositional technique, tintinnabuli. His music also finds its inspiration and influence from...
amongst others. His recordings explicitly reference places of emotional resonance, specifically the West Pennine Moors
West Pennine Moors
The West Pennine Moors cover an area of approximately of moorland and reservoirs in Lancashire and Greater Manchester, England.The West Pennine Moors are separated from the main Pennine range by the Irwell Valley. The moorland includes Withnell, Anglezarke and Rivington Moors in the extreme west,...
, and the area around the sparsely populated parish of Anglezarke
Anglezarke
Anglezarke is a sparsely populated civil parish in the Borough of Chorley in Lancashire, England. It is dominated by reservoirs that were built to supply water to Liverpool, and a large expanse of moorland with evidence of Bronze Age settlements...
. His album Landings has been compared to Brian Eno
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...
's Ambient 4: On Land
On Land
Ambient 4: On Land is an album by the British ambient musician Brian Eno. It was the final edition in Eno’s ambient series, which began in 1978 with Music for Airports.-Track listing:...
in its evocation of place and memory. Skelton even goes are far as to include artefacts, such as twigs and alder
Alder
Alder is the common name of a genus of flowering plants belonging to the birch family . The genus comprises about 30 species of monoecious trees and shrubs, few reaching large size, distributed throughout the North Temperate Zone and in the Americas along the Andes southwards to...
catkins, from significant places in the packaging of his releases.
Most of Skelton's releases have been issued by his own Sustain-Release label - under a range of pseudonym's including A Broken Consort, Carousell and Riftmusic, as well as under his own name - in small editions of CDs with hand-crafted packaging, and often including fragments of poetry. However, some of Skelton's work has attained wider commercial and critical success. His most recent release, Wolf Notes (2011) is a collaboration with his new partner, Autumn Richardson, under the name *AR. He has also recently released a box set of his complete recordings to date, titled *SKURA and totalling 20 discs of music.
Until 2010, Skelton lived in Standish
Standish, Greater Manchester
Standish is a village within the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan, in Greater Manchester, England. It is located on the A49 road between the towns of Chorley and Wigan, a short distance from Junction 27 of the M6 motorway....
, near Wigan
Wigan
Wigan is a town in Greater Manchester, England. It stands on the River Douglas, south-west of Bolton, north of Warrington and west-northwest of Manchester. Wigan is the largest settlement in the Metropolitan Borough of Wigan and is its administrative centre. The town of Wigan had a total...
. However, he has recently relocated to the west coast of Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
.
Discography
Heidika, There Is No Cure & Other Songs, Sustain-Release CDCarousell, A Dead Bridges Into Dust, Sustain-Release CD
Harlassen, A Way Now, Sustain-Release CD
Carousell, Landings, Sustain-Release CD
A Broken Consort, The Shape Leaves, Sustain-Release CD
Riftmusic, Riftmusic, Sustain-Release CD
A Broken Consort, Box of Birch (1st Edition), Sustain-Release CD
Clouwbeck, A Moraine, Sustain-Release CD
A Broken Consort, Crow Autumn (Part One), Sustain-Release CD
Heidika, Tide of Bells & the Sea, Sustain-Release CD
A Broken Consort, Box of Birch (2nd Edition), Sustain-Release CD
A Broken Consort, Crow Autumn (Part Two), Sustain-Release CD
Carousell, Black Swallow & Other Songs, Sustain-Release CD
Richard Skelton, Landings, Type Records LP/CD
Clouwbeck, From Which the River Rises, Sustain-Release CD
Richard Skelton, Marking Time, Preservation Records CD, Type Records LP
Clouwbeck, Wolfrahm, Sustain-Release CD
A Broken Consort, Crow Autumn, Tompkins Square Records CD
*AR, Wolf Notes, Sustain-Release CD
Various Artists, *SKURA, Sustain-Release CD (compilation of Skelton material under different names)