Christmas Social

If you are in London on the 21st of December please come along to the Heavenly Social Christmas Market. I will have a stall selling Clay Pipe goodies including four new Risograph prints featuring the artwork of past Clay Pipe releases, and download cards of sold out Clay Pipe releases including Jon Brooks Shapwick.  I'll be sharing my stall with Glen from Second Language, so there will be a great selection of CDs and Records to choose from. Heavenly bands playing down stairs, winter ales, mulled wine etc.

21st Dec

The Social
5 Little Portland St
London W1W 7JD

12-5.30pm Free Entry

 

Jetsam and Gareth E. Rees 'A Dream Life of Hackney Marshes'

 

CD in Risograph printed, handmade cover.
200 numbered copies.
SOLD OUT! 

Download available at: https://jetsamsound.bandcamp.com/ 

Walthamstow-based group Jetsam are an eclectic contemporary ensemble who create and perform original and commissioned works as well as contemporary repertoire. 

 

In 2012 they teamed up with author Gareth E. Rees for a collaborative project inspired by his blog The Marshman Chronicles and, in particular, his short story‘A Dream Life of Hackney Marshes’. 

 

In Rees’s work, the Lea Marshes are a fragmented world which disrupt the walker’s sense of linear time. The landscape is an unsettling mix of ancient wetland, overgrown Victorian ruins, wild flower meadows, pylons, railway sidings and reservoirs. Kestrels hover over grazing rare breed cattle. Shopping trolleys are sucked into the river bank. A heron stands in a flooded World War II bomb crater. All of this framed by London’s skyscraper skyline and the stadia of the Olympic Park. This inner city wilderness tells a story about London’s past, but it also suggests a future after mankind has gone, when wild nature bursts through the cracks in the city to reclaim it as their own.

In a ‘A Dream Life of Hackney Marshes’. Jetsam’s atmospheric orchestration, and Rees’s spoken word take you on a journey through this troubled dreamscape. 

 

The album has been beautifully recorded at the Music Studios of The University of Hudderfield, it will be limited to 200 numbered copies in a Risograph printed handmade CD case designed by illustrator Frances Castle.

Gareths E. Rees' book Marshland: Dreams and Nightmares on the Edge of London, will be published by Hackney-based Influx Press in November.

Plinths 'Music For Smalls Lighthouse'

 

Plinths 'Music for Smalls Lighthouse' is now available in the shop.

£14.99 + P&P  BUY

Plinth's, Michael Tanner is a musician from Dorset who has recorded under a myriad collection of names and guises these include Cloisters, Taskerlands, Thalassing, part of the duo The A Lords - on Mark Fry's 'I Lived in Trees', and with Irish improvisers the United Bible Studies.

Music For Smalls Lighthouse was initially released in 2010 as a very limited edition CD by Second Language, since then it has been unavailable on a physical format. The album has been specially re-mastered for vinyl by ISAN's Antony Ryan and features completely new artwork by Frances Castle, including an illustrated booklet that tells the story of Smalls Lighthouse. Limited to 500 hand numbered copies it includes a download of the LP and the bonus mini album 'Flotsam' that was included in the original release.

Smalls Lighthouse, is located approximately 20 miles west of St Davids Peninsula in Pembrokeshire Wales . Engineered by a violin-maker and standing on flat rocks battered by the sea, the original lighthouse resembled a squat hut on giant stilts. In the year 1800 two men Thomas Howell and Thomas Griffin, well known locally for their drunken spats and quarrels, boarded a fishing-vessel to spend six months together as lighthouse keepers on Smalls Rock. During this time Griffith was killed in an accident and Howell was left alone to fend for himself struggling to stay sane in the isolation of the lighthouse. The music on this record soundtracks the events that took place with beautiful and often gruesome clarity.

Music For Smalls Lighthouse fosters a subliminal mixture of arcane atmospherics and mournful chamber music....Tanner seals six exquisitely evocative pieces together into one bleakly alluring whole...DOA

Music For Smalls Lighthouseis a quite remarkable record...feels like a slice of Britain has been carved and pressed to vinyl for the listener to enjoy at will… Fluid Radio

We’ll likely never see a glut of similar albums, because they are so difficult to do well, without theatrics or pretense.  But when they are done well, as is the case here, they stick in the mind like cherished guests in a cozy house.  It’s not only their stories that we want to remember, but the ways in which they were told.  A Closer Listen (Richard Allen)

Music and Migration III on Second Language.

I have designed the artwork and contributed a track to the the 3rd 'Music and Migration' compilation on Second Language records, all profits will go to BirdLife International.

It can be bought from HERE

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Way back in 2010, Second Language released a compilation album called Music and Migration, which proffered exclusive sonic wares by artists including Vashti Bunyan, Xela, Hauschka, Leyland Kirby and Peter Broderick. Themed around issues of avian migration, and the many man-made threats to international ‘flyways’ as highlighted by the nature conservation organization, BirdLife International’s Born to Travel campaign, the album proved to be both an artistic and critical ‘hit’, selling out its limited edition almost immediately.

Encouraged by its success, Second Language went on to release a second volume in 2011, the aptly-titled, Music and Migration II, this time in support of BirdLife Malta and their efforts to secure avian migratory routes across the islands. Artists included Marissa Nadler, Piano Magic, Sophie Hutchings and James Brewster.
The third and final instalment in the Music & Migration series Music & Migration III congratulates BirdLife International on their 20th Anniversary and particularly celebrates their important global work for migratory birds. M&MIII has a no less stellar cast, including as it does, exclusive contributions from eminent field recordist Chris Watson, Mark Fry, Colleen, Morr Music label mates ISAN and Pascal Pinon, Lisa Knapp, Memory Drawings, Frances Castle, Oliver Cherer (Dollboy), Gareth Dickson, acid-folk doyenne Sharron Kraus, Directorsound and Glen Johnson (Piano Magic).
'Music & Migration III' comes packaged as a 6 panel concertina sleeve beautifully illustrated by Frances Castle of Clay Pipe Records/The Hardy Tree.

Included with M&MIII is a free bonus disc, Mizieb EP, by The Home Current featuring remixes of Theme From Mizieb (originally released on M&MII) by the likes of The Boats, Opiate, Chronomad, El Búho and Blood On The Snare (Jerome Tcherneyan of Piano Magic). Two original tracks complete the set - Fiddien Torchlight Procession (feat. Anna Rose Carter) and A Case Of Domestic Violins (feat. Sarah Kemp of brave timbers/Lanterns On The Lake).
Even when the music stops, migratory birds will still face threats along their routes of travel. Find out how you can help here: www.birdlife.org
Tracklisting :

1. ISAN - Kirkeskov
2. Colleen - Bird Score
3. Frances Castle - Flight Of The Swans
4. Oliver Cherer - Croham Hurst
5. Directorsound - Is That The Heron?
6. Mark Fry - In Times Like These
7. Memory Drawings - Wheatfields
8. Glen Johnson - L'abandon
9. Pascal Pinon - Fuglar
10. Sharron Kraus - Birds Of The Air
11. Gareth Dickson - Amber Sky
12. Lisa Knapp - Fine Horseman
13. Chris Watson - Namaqua Moves

Shapwick Barn Owl Prints

SOLD OUT

Risograph prints based on the design of the Barn Owl on the back of the 2nd Edition of Jon Brooks Shapwick LP are now available in the shop. These were hand printed at Dalstons Ditto Press and are limited to 50 copies, on A3  Munchen off white paper, numbered and signed by Frances Castle. 

£20 each + P&P BUY

Jon Brooks' Shapwick - 2nd Barn Owl Edition.

SOLD OUT
Jon Brooks Shapwick on 12" vinyl is now available in the SHOP.   380 hand numbered copies, each with a download code. This is the new edition of John Brooks 'Shapwick', which previously sold out. Beautifully printed cover on reverse matt board, this differs to the first edition in that it has a Barn Owl on the back rather than a Long Eared Owl.

 £14.99 + P&P BUY 

 

 Share his mysterious vision via snatches of half-familiar incidental music, swathed in memorial reverb, and found sounds such as the echo-location clicks of bats, all recorded on deliciously deteriorating used cassette tapes' 

- Stewart Lee. The Sunday Times.

'And then Brooks brings out the real treasure: his most focused musical compositions yet; think his Advisory Circle LPs cleaned of public information films but beefed up with extra melody.'

-George Bass. Drowned in Sound.

'Shapwick contains a handful of Brooks' most simple and beautiful compositions.'

- Stuart Huggett. The Quietus.

'A must-have purchase for fans of the Ghost Box and Second Language oeuvres, recommended for everyone else.'

- Mark Brend. Record Collector.

Barn Owl Edtion of Shapwick coming soon.

The Barn Owl Edition - the second edition - of Jon Brooks Shapwick vinyl LP is on its way and should be avaible to pre-order from next week. It is exactly the same as the first edition, except that it features a Barn Owl on the rear of the cover rather than a Long Eared Owl. It will be limited to around 400 copies.

Shapwick Owl Prints

Risograph prints based on the design of the owl on the back of Jon Brooks Shapwick LP are now available in the shop. These were printed at Dalstons Ditto Press and are limited to 50 copies, on A3 300mg Munchen off white paper, numbered and signed by Frances Castle.

£20 each + P&P  BUY

SOLD OUT

Jon Brooks Shapwick. 12" Vinyl LP

SOLD OUT
There will be another edition of Shapwick, so if you missed out on this one please sign up to the mailing list or follow on twitter/facebook.

Jon Brooks Shapwick on 12" vinyl is now avaible in the SHOP.   500 hand numbered copies, each with a download code. Featuring new artwork by Frances Castle on beautiful reverse mat board. Previously released as a CD in a limited edition of 110 hand printed copies it sold out within a couple of hours, and Clay Pipe were inundated with requests for the album to be made available on vinyl.

£14.99  +P&P BUY

'Share his mysterious vision via snatches of half-familiar incidental music, swathed in memorial reverb, and found sounds such as the echo-location clicks of bats, all recorded on deliciously deteriorating used cassette tapes; 

- Stewart Lee. The Sunday Times.

'And then Brooks brings out the real treasure: his most focused musical compositions yet; think his Advisory Circle LPs cleaned of public information films but beefed up with extra melody.'

-George Bass. Drowned in Sound.

I had been stuck in a five hour long traffic jam on a motorway in the autumn of 2011. At the end of the ordeal, we left the motorway and noticed the traffic was backing up onto local roads near Glastonbury; streams of cars, full of hot-headed motorists crawling along congested highways, the roads groaning under a volume for which they were not designed.
I searched the map for alternative routes. We had several hours of further driving ahead of us and it was already dark. One such route was through an area close to Shapwick, a small rural village. As we joined the approach to the village, we headed through several miles of unlit roads, with nothing but gnarled trees and woodland either side, the car headlights suggesting the twists and turns ahead.
I felt a certain energy around the place. The images created by the trees in the dark conjured inspiration and it struck me that an album could be based on an imaginary impression of this area. I had already recorded some pieces that were in search of a home and the idea formed within seconds.
The music I had been writing was recorded directly to a four-track cassette recorder. There were some piano recordings that I had made at my uncle and aunt's house in Devon (where I had stayed prior to the traffic jam), along with other acoustic and electronic pieces. With the Shapwick framework in mind, I recorded much more material. Using everything from a song harp in a garden, to a modular analogue synthesizer, I set about creating textures that would place my own notion of Shapwick on some kind of map; to create a geographic narrative.
I carried forward the notion of recording on four-track cassette - a very immediate recording medium, where there is little chance to manipulate the sound after the fact. This way of working shaped the project further and the medium suggested textures by itself - I had been using very old second-hand cassette stock that had been recorded on by others; subsequently, fragments of recordings already on the tapes showed up at various points and took on their own new lives in the tapestry.
The reality of Shapwick is probably quite different to the impression in my own mind, but nonetheless I think it's interesting to form an impression based on how a place could be, just by passing through it in the dark... and building from there.

Pre Order Jon Brooks 'Shapwick' Monday 4th March

Jon Brooks's Shapwick (12" vinyl with download code) will be available for pre-order on Monday 4th March. With the proper release date being Monday 25th March - because of manufacturing faults Shapwick has had to be re-pressed, hence the delay. If you would like to be reminded please sign up to the mailing list, or twitter /facebook.

To wet your appetite here is  a great review of Shapwick from George Bass over at Drowned in Sound

************************************* 

Last year retro soundtrack wizard The Advisory Circle, aka Jon Brooks, took a breather from his native Ghost Box label to release Shapwick: a hand-printed CD of bewitching, original library music. The track titles and samples described a rural hideaway cut from similar cloth to his Advisory Circle output but much more melodic, and much harder to get hold of (the initial run of 110 printed by Clay Pipe was snapped up almost overnight). The imprint are now reissuing Shapwick on a larger order of vinyl - bad news for elitists, good news for anyone who wants to hear those replicated Cold War delights on authentic analogue technology.
Wherever the imaginary town of Shapwick, is you have to navigate a lot of ambience to find it - the elegant melodies Brooks has concocted are shrouded in fuzzy, unnerving mystique. ‘Stranded Work’ emits chirps recorded in an aviary, while ‘Location’ picks up the roar of a motorway and builds it to a screaming hiss. These are tasters, and later Brooks employs full field recordings that go to even quirkier places: ‘Bat Walk’ is a tape of a nature walk whose Karl Pilkington-like host blows raspberries, and ‘…little apple…' hides its analogue synths in a chopped-up answerphone message. Mix in drone horror, manipulated sine waves and twangs and you’ve got white noise so dark it’d confuse the hell out of anyone.
But beyond the strangeness lies an even more rewarding world, one of brief but brilliant lullabies. Unlike the spooky half, these are precisely the kind of tunes you want fizzing in your ears if you’re walking through dark countryside: ‘Winter’s Hamlet’ is a kids’ TV theme played on echoing, blurry piano, while ‘In The Slow Cold Air’ plays with Múm-like music boxes. These moments help take the edge off the creepy tracks, and light numbers like ‘Small Scales, Shrunken Spaces’ use chimes/Theremins/plucked springs to deliver expertly concocted shots of nostalgia. If you liked the music from The BFG animation you’re going to go crazy for this.
And then Brooks brings out the real treasure: his most focused musical compositions yet; think his Advisory Circle LPs cleaned of public information films but beefed up with extra melody. He delivers rich, tuneful vignettes: descending Eighties synths on ‘Please Drive Carefully’, ‘Quiet Movement for a Silent Night’ and its cracked Perfume Genius piano. It balances the shapeless ghosts of Shapwick with rhythmic electronica, and completes Brooks’ vision of a twinkling nightscape that honours the strangest parts of your dreams, including the feeling your teeth are disintegrating and the falling sensation/hypnic jerk.

Jon Brooks Shapwick Release Date Put Back.

There have been some problems with the pressing of Jon Brooks Shapwick, and it looks like we are not going to make the release date of the 25th Feb. As soon as I have a new release date I will let you know.

Jon Brook's "Shapwick" Due 25th February.

 

I'm very happy to announce that Jon Brook's 'Shapwick' on 12" vinyl will be available from the 25th February 2013.

Previously released as a CD in a limited edition of 110 hand printed copies it sold out within a couple of hours, and Clay Pipe were inundated with requests for the album to be made available on vinyl. The vinyl release features new artwork by Frances Castle on beautiful reverse mat board, and is limited to 500 hand numbered copies, each with a download code.

 **************

It's funny how serendipity can shape the creative process. The most unlikely situations can provide a framework. Shapwick is just such a case in point.

I had been stuck in a five hour long traffic jam on a motorway in the autumn of 2011. At the end of the ordeal, we left the motorway and noticed the traffic was backing up onto local roads near Glastonbury; streams of cars, full of hot-headed motorists crawling along congested highways, the roads groaning under a volume for which they were not designed.

I searched the map for alternative routes. We had several hours of further driving ahead of us and it was already dark. One such route was through an area close to Shapwick, a small rural village. As we joined the approach to the village, we headed through several miles of unlit roads, with nothing but gnarled trees and woodland either side, the car headlights suggesting the twists and turns ahead.

I felt a certain energy around the place. The images created by the trees in the dark conjured inspiration and it struck me that an album could be based on an imaginary impression of this area. I had already recorded some pieces that were in search of a home and the idea formed within seconds.

The music I had been writing was recorded directly to a four-track cassette recorder. There were some piano recordings that I had made at my uncle and aunt's house in Devon (where I had stayed prior to the traffic jam), along with other acoustic and electronic pieces. With the Shapwick framework in mind, I recorded much more material. Using everything from a song harp in a garden, to a modular analogue synthesizer, I set about creating textures that would place my own notion of Shapwick on some kind of map; to create a geographic narrative.

I carried forward the notion of recording on four-track cassette - a very immediate recording medium, where there is little chance to manipulate the sound after the fact. This way of working shaped the project further and the medium suggested textures by itself - I had been using very old second-hand cassette stock that had been recorded on by others; subsequently, fragments of recordings already on the tapes showed up at various points and took on their own new lives in the tapestry.

The reality of Shapwick is probably quite different to the impression in my own mind, but nonetheless I think it's interesting to form an impression based on how a place could be, just by passing through it in the dark... and building from there.

- Jb