Richard Skelton
Landings

Pain. Resignation. Hope. Life after pain: an intimate journey that transforms sound exploration into self-analysis, exploration of one's self, a process of spiritual and above all human rebirth.

Dedicated to his late wife, “Landings” is the restless reflection of Richard Skelton's shattered soul, who from the remote lands of Lancashire, in the deep north of England, weaves his tragic requiem for the beloved woman.

Memories blend with the misty landscapes of his land: the young and astute English multi-instrumentalist, secluded in the intimacy of farms scattered in the enchanting native landscape, like a painter intent on capturing the magic of the surrounding world, creates his masterpiece of sonic abstraction: twelve movements that compose a unique, intense, and unrepeatable musical journey that knows how to combine the most naturalistic ambient with the most emotional electronics, touching on contemporary classical.

Composed over four long years, “Landings” was released in a few copies in 2009 by Skelton's own Sustain-Release (also producer), only to be recently rediscovered by Type Recordings, which has ensured wider distribution. It would indeed have been a true pity to ignore such a work, and it's even more a pity to think that Richard Skelton's name will probably remain the preserve of only a few, very few enthusiasts.

Cinematic, pictorial, expressionist music that blends with painful inspiration and exquisite class interior and exterior worlds, that portrays complex landscapes of the soul, that describes the indescribable: the painful acceptance of the death of a loved one, the desire to be reborn and live again through a panicked fusion with Nature. As the author himself explains, “Landings is an attempt to create a more intimate connection with the landscapes and to explore a sense of identity with the places.”

Lingering in front of a landscape, standing there for hours, inside, motionless, silent, outwardly impassive, with the primordial chaos in turmoil beneath the skin. Lingering in front of a landscape, sinking into its heart, wandering in the wait for the pain to extinguish: a restless walk through the moors, over the vast dew-laden fields, among the dense mists that reveal ghosts of the past and the tears that are still inside.

The various movements tend to resemble each other, dense with the drama of a discourse that boasts the screech but also the melody of strings that overlap and are lost in the vastness of a gray and cloudy sky; drones, infinite loops that ascetically retrace this lingering, lingering, lingering in a wait that seems to have no end, but that slowly brings relief to the spirit. At times a plucked guitar that finds its way through the grooves of a metaphysical and pantagruelian ambient approaching the most rarefied post-rock, images that take us directly to the early Sigur Ros, to the most liquid Fennesz, to his majesty Brian Eno's immense “On Lands”, the primary reference to understand Skelton's work.

Drone-folk, ambient, soulful songwriting that needs no words, but only the contemplation that becomes penetration, sharing with that Everything one wishes to embrace when certainties waver, when the self is so incomplete, weak, fragile that it cannot stand on its own legs.

An artistic search that arises with the technique of field-recording, going through the study of the acoustics of places and environments, transforming into a renewed bond between Self and Nature; self-contemplation, of one's roots, that becomes for us contemplation, penetration of a music that knows how to overwhelm, excite, cradle the senses even before the mind.

It is neither minimalism nor monotony: it's just lingering on the sound waiting for the notes to align with the contours of the soul. It means proceeding slowly, drinking the time needed to gain inner calm and return to living.

Have you heard a more beautiful album this year? I haven't.