Tompkins Square label will release ‘Crow Autumn’ by A Broken Consort on CD, LP and digitally, February 9th, 2010. The vinyl LP is a limited edition of 500.
‘Crow Autumn’ is the latest album by English composer Richard Skelton, who releases haunting and evocative music under a variety of guises through his own much-acclaimed Sustain-Release Private Press. From Clouwbeck to Heidika, Carousell to Riftmusic, his recordings brim with intensity and stark beauty, redolent of the landscapes that inspire them.
Recording here as A Broken Consort – his most prolific and successful pseudonym – Skelton expertly builds on the achievements of last year’s Box Of Birch, creating a dense-yet-delicate weave of textures from a broad palette of acoustic instruments, including guitar, mandolin, piano, violin and accordion. The result is a stunning sequence of swells and eddies, culminating in the orchestral intensity of ‘The River’, with its torrent of interleaved violin melodies and seething undertow.
With Crow Autumn, Skelton has created a work of enduring beauty that should firmly establish him as one of England’s most uniquely talented contemporary artists, capable of rendering with a fine brush the visceral majesty of the natural landscape.