The Hardy Tree - 'Through Passages of Time' Repress.

The Hardy Tree - 'Through Passages of Time' is sold out, there will be a second pressing  this time on transparent yellow vinyl. It is available to pre-order now and will ship on the 3rd Feb 2017. 

£16.99p +P&P

Download/stream at: itunes/bandcamp/spotify/greedbag etc

SPENCER'S PICK OF THE WEEK - The Hardy Tree, Through The Passages Of Time (Clay Pipe Music) Another beautiful release from Clay Pipe here. Delicate melodies weave themselves in and out of wonderful, warm Moog synths & mellotrons creating an enchanting wistful paean to an England long forgotten. This is hauntingly beautiful and easily one of the records of the year. Please go seek it out and support this amazing label. Spencer Hickman, Mondo Music Weekly.
 

"Through Passages of Time" belongs to another (green) world and congratulations should go to Frances Castle for divining this wonderfully touching collection and successfully capturing it on tape. It's musical psycho-geography par excellence and probably the most human record you will hear all year. Get it while you can as, like much of the city it commemorates, I am sure it will be gone before you know it.The Active Listener

Castle draws distinctive scenes that are as alluring and enigmatic as her acclaimed artwork. An understated yet remarkable genre-bending pleasure in short. DOA 

This is a wonderful record, a record that would appeal to anyone who likes good music, but especially rewarding for anyone of a certain age who likes the Vic Mars album The Land And The Garden out on the same label or indeed anyone who is familiar with the music of Vernon Elliott. It is both nostalgic yet modern. Terrascope
 

Through Passages of Time provides elegies for locations such as Newport Market, Sandbridge Court, Sluice House Tavern, even (*shudder*) Cut Throat Lane. The happy use of Moog, Mellotron and other seemingly antiquated instruments is both tribute and reflection. A Closer Listen.

The Hardy Tree - Through Passages of Time. Available Now.

The Hardy Tree – Through Passages of Time.

Release date 2nd Dec 2016.
12" coloured blue vinyl with reverse board cover. 500 hand numbered copies.
SOLD OUT  

There will be a re-press, please sign up to the mailing list.

I will make pre-orders available ASAP.

Available as download/stream through:
itunes/bandcamp/spotify/greedbag etc

  

The Hardy Tree is the musical project of Clay Pipe Music's founder Frances Castle, her first LP ' The Fields Lie Sleeping Underneath' was the initial release on the label over five years ago.

Through Passages of Time soundtracks buildings and areas of London that no longer exist. Small places stumbled upon by accident, traced on maps, and illustrated in Georgian prints. Frequently visited pubs that have been rebuilt and renamed, the ship breakers yard decorated with wooden figureheads at Baltic Wharf, or the Thames Watermen living in the shadow of the Hawksmoor designed church at Horselydown. Lost places re-imagined and brought to life using clusters of sequenced Moogs, off Kilter electronics, vibes, and Mellotron - capturing the essence of the dark city and its more bucolic outer suburbs. This is a plaint to an older stranger London that is quickly becoming priced out and forgotten. Look carefully and clues to the ancient past can still be found.
 
Looking Down on London
The Culvert
The Peerless Pool
St John Horsleydown
Newport Market
Baltic Wharf
Pepy’s Walk
Sandbridge Court
Sluice House Tavern
Penny’s Folly
Near Windmill Bridge
Harringay House
Cut Throat Lane


https://soundcloud.com/clay-pipe-music/the-hardy-tree-looking-down-on-london

https://soundcloud.com/clay-pipe-music/sandbridge-court

The Hardy Tree - Through Passages Of Time.

Next up on Clay Pipe, The Hardy Tree's 'Through Passages of Time'. More info soon.

Alasdair Roberts and James Green Mini Tour.

Due to popular demand the show at The Old Dentists  has now been split into two separate sittings/houses/shows.
TIMINGS AS FOLLOWS
EARLY SHOW https://www.wegottickets.com/event/375249
EO1 07:00 07:30
AR1 07:45 08:45
LATE SHOW https://www.wegottickets.com/event/370346
EO2 09:00 09:30
AR2 09:45 10:45
If you already have tickets, they are for the late show. If you're at all confused check timings on the WeGotTickets link through which you bought your tickets!

Alasdair Roberts and James Green are doing a mini tour in support of Plaint of Lapwing.
26th September - London,Old Dentists, E5 0LH
27th September - Sheffield , Regather Works.
29th September - Glasgow, Old Hairdressers.

I have now SOLD OUT of the LP however there are still copies available at:

 Transmission

Monorail 

Ghostbox

Little Toller

Normans.

'Plaint of Lapwing' by Alasdair Roberts and James Green.

Clay Pipe Music is proud to present 'Plaint of Lapwing' by Alasdair Roberts and James Green.

12" vinyl with download slip.

500 copies in red, 300 copies in blue.

Hand numbered reverse board covers.

BUY

£15.99 +P&P 

Also available at: 
Transmission
Monorail 
Normans
Ghostbox Guest Shop

Streaming and download:
iTunes / Amazon / Spotify 

 Here Alasdair explains how the record came about: 

Mayday 2012: an email from James Green in Sheffield reached me in Glasgow. I knew James a little – not particularly well; we had met a few times over the years and had collaborated a little too (I'd sung on a couple of songs on the album Folk Songs 2 by his group The Big Eyes Family Players). I understood that he played the harmoniflute, an instrument somewhere between a harmonium and an accordion, and seemed very enamoured of it. His email read: “had an idea about approaching you with... an ep or few songs (trad or otherwise) accompanied by my harmoniflute, and nothing else... just an idea once the dust has settled, maybe...”.

 The dust was not long in the swirling before coming to rest upon both of our past endeavours, and shortly we set to work on the project which became Plaint of Lapwing. My initial thought was to concentrate on just four pieces – I'd just recorded the Drag City LP/CD A Wonder Working Stone and had some songs left over from that. In a process which James was later to characterise as 'surreal', I started emailing him recordings of my disembodied voice; in response I would eagerly await, tracks featuring aforesaid voice with James' harmoniflute accompaniment.

The project gradually, almost imperceptibly, developed in scope and complexity over two years. I began sending James more vocal takes as well as other sonics I'd generated, for a variety of original compositions and some by other authors (including a song by the Perthshire folklorist Hamish Henderson, an arrangement by Benjamin Britten of a piece by the Irish poet Thomas Moore, a lyric by beekeeping Cornish film maker Timothy Neat and a setting of a work by the Angus poet Violet Jacob). James in turn increased his instrumental palette to include drums, guitars and all other kinds of musical things.

  As the project developed, so did a wonderful friendship blossom between James and myself.  I found I was sending vocal tracks attached to emails detailing current grievances in my personal life, as if envisaging James as some kind of agony aunt.  James, in return, sent completed tracks and, apparently regarding me as some kind of sounding board, emails venting his strident opinions (invariably in line with my own) on whatever political matter ruled the day. Before we knew it the disembodied sounds had become incarnate and James and I found we had an LP's worth of material - an LP featuring beautiful artwork by Frances Castle which you, dear listener, now have the opportunity to welcome into your own home.

Lino print by James Green. 

Caught By The River Thames

Thanks to everyone who bought copies of Tyneham House. They have now all been posted so you should receive your copy soon. This is an early reminder that later in the summer I'll be playing some music at the Caught By The River Thames Festival. You can buy tickets HERE Next up is Alasdair Roberts and James Greens 'Plaint of Lapwing', news on that soon.

Pre-order Tyneham House.

 Tyneham House.

10" Coloured Vinyl with hand made booklet.

300 numbered copies + download code.

Pre-orders now available.

SOLD OUT
DOWNLOAD FROM BANDCAMP

Previously available on CD as a split release between Second Language and Clay Pipe Music, this is its first outing on vinyl.

The small village of Tyneham, on the beautiful Isle of Purbeck, in Dorset, was once a thriving little community – that is until the British Government requisitioned it for training manoeuvres and other ‘strategic purposes’ in the run up to WWII. This was supposed to be a temporary measure, but the area remained in military possession long after hostilities had ceased, causing distress among former inhabitants, many of whom were farmed out to prefabs in nearby Wareham and Swanage.

Tyneham was characterised by its red telephone box, a tiny parade of shops – Post Office Row – and a grand country pile which stood about half a mile away from the village: Tyneham House. The army removed the building’s oak panelling and ornate decorative details and promptly set about using it for target practice. So great was the shame expressed locally about the damage inflicted upon one of Dorset’s grandest houses that the powers that be decided to grow a copse around the remains of the structure to give the impression that it was no longer there. Despite this, a substantial part of the structure remains intact, including its Saxon hall. 

Land access around Tyneham was opened up in the 1970s, but admission to the house remains strictly verboten. Those who’ve been found around the premises, especially anyone wielding a camera, have felt the full weight of military trespass law. Tyneham today is regarded as a nature reserve by some – as a national embarrassment by others. It’s still a political hot potato, in Dorset at least.

The pastoral, wistful yet ineffably disquieting music of Tyneham House is made by artists  who wish to remain anonymous here, save for their eponymous title. The musicians are happy, however, to let it be known that these recordings have been around for some years (many of them complied from old cassettes) and that they take inspiration from the 1960s/’70s/’80s work of the Children’s Film Foundation – a body who really ought to have made a film about this mysterious West Country curio. At least now we have its endlessly poignant soundtrack.

Tracklisting:LP

• A Chalk Horse
• Rookery Wood
• Coppice Walk
• Binoculars
• Bletchingley
• Post Office Row
• The Crows Circle
• Winter Carriage
• The Ragged Cat
• I Shall Not Cross The Sleeping Hill
• The Porch Room
• Saxon Chapel
• Last Village Before The Sea
• Lit Room At Midnight

Download Extra :

A: A School Holiday, 1977
B: May Day, 1981

Independent Label Market

On 2nd of April 2016 Clay Pipe will be at the Independent Label Market at Spitafields, London. I will have pre-release copies of Tyneham House, and Alasdair Roberts and James Green's 'Plaint of Lapwing'. There will also be a joint cassette re-issue of Darren Haymans Lido with WIAIWYA. If you would like to reserve a copy of any of these please email me.

Tyneham House will be available to pre-order from the Clay Pipe website on 8th April, with a release date of the 6th May. Info on the previous CD release HERE

 

Vic Mars - The Land and The Garden, Second Edition.

The second 'Hollyhock' edition of Vic Mars - The Land And The Garden is nowavailable. 

SOLD OUT 

A few remaining copies at NORMANS

One copy per person. 

12" Vinyl LP, 500 hand numbered copies, reverse board mat cover, and printed inner sleeve with download code included.

You can also buy the album digitally from:

AMAZON// ITUNES// GOOGLE PLAY

Or stream it on: SPOTIFY

Vic Mars is a Herefordshire born musician currently based in London, he has recently returned from spending over a decade in Nagoya, Japan.In 2008 he released the mini-LP 'Kanransha' on Kentaro Togawa's Symbolic Interaction label, and 2012 saw the Bandcamp released library music inspired, 'Curriculum For Schools And Colleges: Volumes 1 &2'.

In 2013 whilst still based in Japan but on a visit home, Vic was stuck by the reprints of vintage British Railway posters hanging in his brothers house. Back in Japan, homesick and inspired by his childhood memories of the Herefordshire landscape he started the initial recordings for The Land and the Garden, carefully piecing together string and Mellotron soundscapes using archaic tracker software, and recording direct to cassette tape. During this time he immersed himself in the music of British classical composers such as Gustav Holst, and Ralph Vaughan Williams, the minimalist work of Wim Mertens and 1970’s children's BBC soundtracks such as those by Freddie Phillips, and Vernon Elliot. 

In 2014 with the album half finished Vic moved back to the UK, and after a period of disruption where his equipment was still in transit, he completed the record in the spring of 2015.

This is hugely ambitious and beautifully realised, neo-classical electronic/organic chamber music with mellotron (and associated ‘natural’ tape hiss) at the centre of much of the action going on. This is the sound of memory – a psycho-geographical survey of his British homeland largely dreamt up when Vic was way out east in Japan. The Active Listener

Vic Mars delved into his thoroughly English past for this release, pulling in vintage British Railway posters, the composer Gustav Holst and, 1970's children's television programs. The aesthetic is so deeply imbued that he’s even the classic Faber & Faber typeface… So, The Land And The Garden is kind of like English hauntology but without the spooky aspect: in fact, these pieces are rather lovely.  Normans Records

A quietly stunning full length from Vic Mars on the ever-reliable Clay Pipe label. The Land and The Garden takes a bucolic look at modern composition, with enticing reed instruments and Moondog-esque percussive lines weaving an understated poignancy into the compositions. It's instantly involving, a record unboastful of its melodic and arrangement achievements and sitting somewhere between Pascal Comelade, the afore-mentioned Moondog's most melodic work and something somehow quintessentially British and nostalgic, in the best possible way. Monorail Records

 The first non bandcamp release from Hereford born musician Vic Mars gives the impression of what the still shadowed pastoral of Virgina Astley's of From Gardens Where We Feel Secure would sound like if reorchestrated by Belbury Poly. The Wire