Richard Skelton * Madeleine Cocolas – Ambientblog

RICHARD SKELTON – THE SECOND CHAMBER

Apart from releasing his work through various channels, Richard Skelton also runs a private label named Sustain-Release, releasing ‘a string of hermetic, landscape-oriented albums under a series of pseudonyms’ since 2005.

To mark the 20 years anniversary of Sustain-Release (which, incidentally, coincides with Ambientblog’s own anniversary this year), Skelton did not choose to release a retrospective collection or a set of unreleased material, but presents a completely new album ‘that honours the spirit of his earlier work’.

If you’re familiar with Richard Skelton‘s work, you’ll know that his music has changed over the years. As he puts it himself, he ‘has subjected the acoustic palette of sounds to increasingly destructive processes’.
But for this album, he returns to his ‘broken consort’ of small, handmade, or modified string instruments, and a purely acoustic sound. A uniquely personal sound. The sound of Richard Skelton
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Skelton‘s arrangements, however, are nothing like what is usually called contemporary ‘modern classical’ music. His compositions can be rather abstract, and even when they have a distinct melody, there’s still something otherworldly about them.

“The result is an album that looks to the horizon while remaining anchored in the soil, an album that treats as revelation the chance resonances of even the simplest of musical gestures, an album that celebrates the life-affirming qualities of music itself.”

MADELEINE COCOLAS – SYNDESIS

Greece is Madeleine Cocolas‘ ancestral homeland. When re-visiting Greece twenty years after her first visit, Cocolas decided to collect sounds from her journey to “connect the past with the present and tether memories to place”. Sound captured “from the top of the Acropolis to the gate at Mycenae, from water lapping against the Bourtzi Fortress to church bells ringing at St Georges church in Nafplio”.

But that does not imply Syndesis (‘link’ or ‘connection’) is a field-recording album. The original recordings served as an inspiration for compositions “that reflect my emotional response to the memories I hear within them”.

As a result, each of the six compositions on Syndesis has a completely different atmosphere. Jubilant (Where We Began), impressed/immersed (Parthenon), crowded and perhaps somewhat nervous (The Lion Gate), peace disturbed (Bells Of Athena), heavenly (Theory Of Divination), fulfilled (Where We Go).
Which are my associations with the music (without having the same roots in Greece, of course), not Cocolas’!

Few albums manage to offer such a wide range of atmospheres and emotions while still maintaining a cohesive, unified feel. “A deeply personal album that explores the nexus between music, place, and memory”. But ‘personal’ in a way that every listener can relate to.

Syndesis is mastered by Lawrence English and released on the Room40 label as a digital-only release.

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