A Guidonian Hand (Repress) (Richard Skelton)

Glass mastered music CD
Download code
6-panel card enclosure
Edition of 200 (Repress)

 

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‘As Skelton knits and scrapes his way through various chordal structures, incorporating violin, woodwinds, bowed cymbal and piano, one can’t help but wonder if the 21st century polymath has extended his own hand to history.’ 
(A Closer Listen)

 

‘The melodies echo on and on, appearing as uneasy, trembling hymns, written on eroded pieces of yellow parchment and coming from a long-lost period in history … The hills, valleys, ridges, rocks – these things never age, and neither does the music.’
(Fluid Radio)

 

‘One can’t help but relinquish any resistance, ultimately surrendering to a movingly evocative impulse … The harmonic discernment subtending the whole never fails to carry the listener through this reiterative ritual.’
(Touching Extremes)

A Guidonian Hand gathers ten interlinked sinistral recordings made across 2020/21. After the distorted sine and square waves of last year’s These Charms May Be Sung Over A Wound, this new album broadens the focus to embrace cello, woodwinds, bowed cymbal and piano. The result is a darkly thrilling drift through acoustic and electronic domains.

 

1. the first point of contaction 4:21
2. as bodies of rest and station 1:54
3. the motion of the indivisible 2:25
4. in the altar of burnt offerings 4:48
5. nectar of the fifth 2:33
6. in ancient fabricks 8:15
7. and instruments of incision 4:33
8. a longilaterall figure 8:36
9. nature is become a point of art 3:57
10. the late afflicting fire 6:45

 

(All track titles from Thomas Browne)