Clay Pipe Music 9 Items

For his new album, Irreparable Parables, Andrew Wasylyk felt a strong desire to write a set of songs featuring an element hitherto rare in his work: the human voice. Equally strong was the conviction that he did not want to sing them himself.

The Scottish multi-instrumentalist and composer set about assembling a group of guest singers, sending out the songs to wherever they were in the world. The vocals were recorded remotely and then, like migrating birds, winged their way back to Scotland. The result is an album of great beauty which, perhaps preeminently in Wasylyk’s work, expresses the vulnerability and resilience of the human spirit.

Six singers appear on the record, represented by six songbirds illustrated on the sleeve by Clay Pipe Music’s Frances Castle. The cuckoo is a nod to Belle and Sebastian’s 2004 single ‘I’m A Cuckoo’, that band’s Stuart Murdoch being the first voice you hear on the new album. When the vocal for ‘Private Symphony #2’ arrived, says Wasylyk, “it was everything that I was looking for and more. But this is Stuart Murdoch. Of course he’s going to make something incredibly beautiful and thoughtful.”

The song lyrics were, for the most part, written by the singers. The music is Wasylyk’s creation. He navigates a sound world that lies somewhere beyond the borders of classical and jazz, ambient and abstract. It is difficult to describe, but easy to understand, which is to say to feel. That is the way Wasylyk’s work is experienced: as a feeling. It takes you back to childhood, perhaps, to feelings of comfort and safety, or to memories of walks at sunrise and sunset, or to the way a shadow falls on a particular field in a particular place at a particular time in your life. This is consoling music. That is why, though pretty, it is not merely pretty. These are songs to shore up the soul.

Wasylyk writes in a room, in his native Dundee, full of “half broken” instruments. He picks these up, plays a little, seeking an idea, a feeling, a door that lies ajar. The musical palette of Irreparable Parables includes brass and woodwind, a six-piece string section, guitar, bass, drums, vibraphone, Mellotron, Fender Rhodes, tape loops, synthesisers and percussion. The strings were arranged by the cellist Pete Harvey, a long-term collaborator.

Among the other guest vocalists are Gruff Rhys of the Super Furry Animals, Saya Ueno from Japan’s Tenniscoats and Peter Brewis from Field Music. Wasylyk himself takes the lead vocal on the title track, though a throat infection and touch of pitch-shifting have altered his singing in a way that even he, having fallen out of love with his own voice, finds acceptable.

The heart of the record can, arguably, be found in two tracks, ‘Love Is A Life That Lasts Forever’ and ‘Spectators In The Absence of God’, sung respectively by Molly Linen and Kathryn Joseph. The former, bright with trumpets, was inspired by the writing of Derek Jarman. “I was feeling deeply upset about the world and wanted to try and write some- thing that was obviously hopeful,” Wasylyk says.

‘Spectators …’ offers an emotional counterpoint. It is an “apocalyptic hymn” that seems to grapple with watching human suffering from afar, too distant to be at physical risk, but experiencing the psychological wounding, and feelings of helplessness, even complicity, that come with constant awareness of other people’s pain. “Kathryn’s a pal, I love her dearly, and she’s a brilliant artist who really feels what she writes,” Wasylyk says. “The cracked tenderness of her voice is spellbinding.”

The album closes with an instrumental piece, ‘Soul Enters The Ocean Sun Climbs Out Of The Sea’, all piano and strings, that offers a sense of resolution and ascension. A good moment, too, for Wasylyk to reflect upon the artistic companionship that he enjoyed while making this record – the songbirds that answered his call: “These humans are incredible at what they do. I’m deeply grateful and feel so lucky. It blows my mind.”

From The Edge is a long-form musical work shaped by the acoustics, history, and atmosphere of Dover.

Conceived by Kent-based composers Richard Bundy and Anna Phoebe, and supported by a host of other musicians and artists, the album sits at the heart of their Dover Unlocked project — a body of work that reimagines and quietly subverts the accepted narrative of this UK coastal border town. At its core is a simple idea: to use music to open up hidden, overlooked historic spaces and let them be heard again. These include sites such as the Grand Shaft - a Napoleonic-era spiral staircase that descends 140 feet through the iconic chalk cliffs - as well as St Edmund’s Chapel, the Maison Dieu, and Fort Burgoyne, built in the 1860s to guard the high ground just north of Dover Castle. The project is rooted in the act of performing within these places. Each space has its own character and resonance, which affects the sound and influences the performance within it. The music itself takes many forms, from the delicate acoustic and electronic textures of the opening passages to the rhythmic intensity of the Sacconi Quartet recorded in St Edmund’s Chapel. Anna Phoebe’s violin weaves through the LP, linking dusty electronic beats and choral voices, while Richard Bundy’s piano adds moments of expressive clarity. Beyond the music, the outside world - like the A20 road - seeps into the recordings, becoming an unseen performer. Jazz drums, uptempo synths, and resonant bass combine to create a world where history and music intertwine. Richard Bundy toured the world for more than 30 years as a musician and Musical Director, collaborating with many well-known artists. He now composes music for film, as well as creating neo classical and ambient works. His credits include the score for The Protagonist, which was shown at the Cannes Film Festival. Anna Phoebe is a violinist, composer, and broadcaster whose work blends contemporary classical, electronic, and experimental music. She co-hosts the much-loved Radio 4 show Add to Playlist and creates immersive album and score projects that are both raw and cinematic. Her work has featured across Apple TV+, Channel 4, Netflix, ITV and the BBC, and has been championed by BBC 6 Music, BBC Radio 3 and Kexp. The Dover Unlocked project became more than live performances, more than the creation of an album, more than a film. Ultimately, it became the unlocking of a town through time - and that town was waiting to be heard.

The “Furlongs Crystal Clear Vinyl Edition” LP by Gilroy Mere is released on Clay Pipe Music. The album grew out of a series of laptop sketches that Oliver Cherer composed during daily train journeys along the Downs while undergoing medical treatment; impressions of the landscape and the imagery of painter Eric Ravilious shape the compositional voice.

Musically, the work moves between modern chamber-style arrangements and folk structures suffused with ambient elements: delicate melodies, subtly processed electronic textures, and acoustic woodwinds create a calm, contemplative atmosphere. Titles such as “Beachy Head,” “Chalk Paths,” and “Hope Gap” refer directly to landscape motifs and organize the album into a sequence of atmospheric miniatures.

For individual tracks, Cherer brought in musician friends; clarinet, trumpet, flute, and additional vocal contributions lend the instrumentation an organic feel. The recordings were made at his own studio, The Laundry, in St Leonards-on-Sea and follow a clear, detail-oriented production approach that highlights the quiet nuances of the compositions.

Furlongs picks up where earlier Gilroy Mere releases on Clay Pipe Music left off and expands the existing repertoire with a collection of atmospheric, place-based pieces that further articulate the project’s characteristic, narrative-poetic style.

‘Hearing The Water Before Seeing The Falls’ is Andrew Wasylyk’s second LP for the esteemed Clay Pipe Music label. It sees the Scottish composer and producer reach for new ground, finding quietly sublime imagery in rich and immersive worlds; horizon-less oceans and limitless landscapes.

The initial seed of inspiration for this work was conceived as a commissioned response to ‘The World’s Edge’ exhibition, by American contemporary landscape photographer Thomas Joshua Cooper, at the National Galleries of Scotland.

“A level of its very own” Mojo

"Consistently inventive" Uncut Magazine

"Rural Tapes delights in the unexpected. At every turn, you encounter something new, something to be marvelled over. Kjelsrud Mathisen has said he wants this music to stand the test of time. It will." The Independent

Clay Pipe Music is thrilled to welcome to the label Norway’s Rural Tapes - the alias of producer and multi-instrumentalist Arne Kjelsrud Mathisen.

His new record Oneiric is one for the dreamers - a trippy, cosmic aural experience of mostly instrumental music, recorded on analogue equipment at his Nygrenda Vev & Dur studio in rural Norway. Arne is also joined on two vocal tracks by long-time collaborators Alexis Taylor (Hot Chip) and Gary Olson (The Ladybug Transistor).

He says: “The word Oneiric refers to things connected with dreams. I've drawn inspiration from the strange, surreal, humorous, imaginative, and vividly colourful experiences that often unfold within them.”

“I have played with genres, sounds and timbres and put together pieces of music that I think could be the soundtrack to a dream sequence. I love the way a dream can be so bizarre and yet still feel so natural, and I can relate to that otherworldliness in the way I compose and put together musical pieces. Some songs have a clear structure, some have not, some are minimalist, some are maximalist, some are wistful and some are joyful, but I think all of them are quite colourful and playful.”

“I’ve taken inspiration from many different music eras and many different corners of the world, from quirky British music to French dream pop to the 60s New York tape music scene to ambient and psychedelic music. The music is created hands on using old analogue gear such as tape machines, dictaphones, tape echoes and more to colour the music and give the sounds the right textures. This way I feel connected to the music I make.”

Over the past two decades, Arne has established himself as a key figure in the Norwegian music scene. He has played in influential bands including I Was A King and Heroes & Zeros, and more recently has been releasing music and playing live with The No Ones — alongside Peter Buck and Scott McCaughey and The Minus 5, and I Was A King frontman Frode Strømstad.

He launched his Rural Tapes project in 2021 with a self-titled debut which established his reputation for inventive, forward-thinking music. He has continued to draw widespread praise across subsequent releases, including Inner Space Music (2022) and Contact (2024).

David Boulter, best known as a long-time member of Tindersticks, returns to Clay Pipe Music with Whitby - an evocative mini album inspired by the stark beauty and unsettling calm of England’s North Yorkshire coast.

Unlike the familiar seaside towns of his youth - Great Yarmouth, Scarborough, Filey - Whitby held no particular memories for Boulter until he visited with his family in the summer of 2024. "I’m constantly inspired by my surroundings, or memories of them," he says. "Sat on an almost deserted beach, halfway between Whitby and Sandsend, it really hit me. The absolute beauty - and how alien it seemed. It was quite a stormy day: grey skies coming in off the North Sea, sun breaking through. The way the light hit the rocks, scattered across the beach; the waves crashing. Walking up to the ruined Abbey at sunset, again almost deserted. I imagined human life disappeared."

Cate Brooks is back with her seventh release for Clay Pipe Music. Never one to stand still, ‘Easel Studies’ finds her pushing the boundaries of sound synthesis and experimentation on the Buchla Music Easel while still sounding beautifully beguiling and hypnotically melodic. "On this day in 2015, at exactly Midday, I took delivery of a wildly exotic musical instrument. To call it a synthesizer would be a misrepresentation; it’s really more of a tactile, living, breathing entity than anything else. It had originally supposed to have been delivered on the day before, but had somehow been mislaid in the labyrinths of the Royal Mail sorting office at Elephant and Castle. I sat patiently and quietly all morning, waiting for its imminent arrival. I had already read through the ‘manual’, which is more of a concept / design for living, written by synthesis legend Allen Strange. With Noon approaching, I became a little anxious- my local postie, Barrie, was usually here by about 10:30am and there was no sign of him.

Back in 2011 when I was tentatively looking for a second release for my fledging record label Clay Pipe Music, I stumbled upon a mysterious MySpace page by a group called ‘Tyneham House’, the page was decorated with artwork by Rena Gardiner (who was unknown to me at that time) and the music was an otherworldly mix of field recordings, Mellotron and acoustic guitar. It turned out that Tyneham was promised to Glen Johnson’s Second Language label, so I offered to do the artwork, and in January 2012 the two labels co-released it on tape and CD in a cardboard box with a handmade booklet of my illustrations.

In 2016 Clay Pipe reissued it on 10” vinyl, in an edition of just 300, which has since become sort after. The new 2023 pressing is on blue and transparent marbled vinyl, with a reverse board cover and inner sleeve, and the booklet of illustrations has been given a complete redesign. Frances Castle 2023

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.

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.