*SKURA ~ Complete Works

Skura is Proto-Germanic for “mark,” or “tally,” cousin to the English word score. In turn, a score is a soundtrack, or a group of twenty. Richard Skelton’s *SKURA marks a score of scores, or better, a single soundtrack that evolves over the course of twenty movements. There are twenty discs here, so the title is perfect, but not just that. Inspired.

Those readers old enough to have listened to the vinyl format the first time around might not be comfortable with the expression “box set”, which is something David Bowie, Led Zeppelin or The Byrds should release. A box set is a reformatting and repackaging of material the buyer already owns (consider the flood of these reissues throughout the late 80s and early 90s, concurrent with the rise of the CD). Think then of *SKURA as a collection, not a repackaging. From the artist’s web site:

…presented in a beautiful, hand-crafted ash box with sliding glass panel. *SKURA gathers together the artist’s complete works to date – including all previously out-of-print editions published between 2005 and 2010. The collection is completed by a new album, *SKURA, which comprises nearly 60 minutes of new and unreleased recordings.

For those readers unfamiliar with Richard Skelton’s work, know that a review does not simply introduce the newcomer with a single gesture. Skelton records openly under several aliases, each with a unique creative vantage. As he said in a 2009 interview with The Line Of Best Fit: “Hopefully you’ll agree that Riftmusic is a different entity to Heidika, for example.” (He has referred to this impulse as a “taxonomy,” which is easily the best way you will hear it put.) Other projects include Carousell, Harlassen, A Broken Consort, Clouwbeck, and — only recently — one named “Richard Skelton.” Seven moods, seven introductions. Some of the incarnations occur infrequently, or only once (Riftmusic), others are quite prolific (A Broken Consort). Maybe — as Skelton decants more flavors into this broth — we will be treated to a second *SKURA, a score of pseudonyms.

Newcomers should know a few more things: first, he is fairly populist, both in his own aesthetic convictions, and in the way he is received by fans and music journalists. He has described his travel through “woods and fields” as “a spiritual reawakening — but one which had no reference to God or any specific religion.” He refers to an early, noncommercial distribution as “a blithe statement about consumerism.” And as interest in his work has gained momentum, he has continued to struggle against the anonymity of mass production. Normally this would be an esoteric, even ideological statement, but in Skelton’s case it is quite concrete. He has often taken the concept of custom album packaging to its logical extreme, with limited runs of, say, 28 copies packaged together with seeds, dried leaves or other foraged materials. Of the Crow Autumn release, distributed by Tompkins Square in lieu of his own, private label, he says:

And most difficult of all was the dilemma over turning something loaded with personal significance into a commodity, which the world may consume, absorb or reject. In an economic and cultural climate where it’s difficult to obtain subsidy for art, and where creativity seems only to be valued in monetary terms, it’s a decision that many artists can be forgiven for making without thinking.

As mentioned above, his reception establishes him as something of a people’s artist. Album reviews and profile pieces regularly lapse into the first person voice, as if Skelton has transcended (and eschewed) the aloof savant role for something more resembling, say, a close acquaintance, a personal correspondent. Articles routinely use the artist’s forename, not the surname, and it is clear that Skelton’s compositions involve the listener in ways that those of his contemporaries do not.

This brings us to the other point you should know: the artist does not claim to be any kind of musical virtuoso. Quite the contrary: “it’s a miracle that I make music at all – it doesn’t come naturally. I’ve had to really persevere to get to a stage where I’m just pretty bad, instead of downright awful. Crap musicians of the world, unite, and take over.” The overused idiom about the creative process — the one that ends with the phrase “99 percent perspiration” — would seem totally at odds with Skelton’s own creativity. This is a man who would leave behind copies of field recordings, buried at their source, or leave his journal entries tucked under rocks. Skelton generates raw feed in improvised, outdoor sessions, using the West Pennine Moors as his unwalled studio. He has dedicated *SKURA and all of its component works to “Louise Skelton, 1975-2004.” So this would seem like an artist who leans disproportionately toward inspiration, not like one who emphasizes loops, edits and crafting. But we should take him at his word. And we are better for it, besides.

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*SKURA: early works, before June 2007

The claim that any artist’s work improves with each successive release may seem careless, a cliché, or an overstatement. In Skelton’s case, it is none of those. Indeed, the reader should expect an evolution as dramatic as this, in light of his continued emphasis on method. By Disc Seven it is clear that we are dealing with an impressive talent. By Disc Fourteen, a true modern composer. But what, then, does this say about Disc One?

The difference between Skelton’s older material and the more recent recordings is dramatic, to be sure, but not impossibly so. Radiohead could have put six more pseudonyms to good use by now. For purposes of this review, let us refer to Discs One through Six as Skelton’s “early” material, that is, anything that predates the first edition of Box Of Birch.

By point of fact Disc One (There Is No Cure) reads like a true prologue, markedly different from anything else in Skelton’s arsenal. This is a place of guitar, violin and processing, andante pacing, and a considerable degree of restraint. Few reviews exist: the album was obscure in more than one sense of the word. But in retrospect it seems that these first 22 minutes represent the beginning of a search. Even more, There Is No Cure suggests that the artist was still learning how to search.

The stride breaks into a sprint with Disc Three: the Harlassen release, titled A Way Now. The narrative of track titles, the title of the album itself, the heightened musical pulse, and the fact that Skelton employed the Harlassen pseudonym exactly once all suggest a transition point, a sort of resolution, both artistically and personally. We can only speculate about the details, but the result is a tension of kinetic energy and delicious anchoring: a car with both the accelerator and brake pedals jammed into the floorboard. The itch and ache of violin string becomes exotic dissonance, the heavy pluck of a guitar string doubles as a percussion strike. This is music shot through a macro lens.

The only problematic disc among the first six is the last one: the self-titled premiere of Riftmusic. Originally released in March 2007, Riftmusic is a single, all-but-unnamed track, “No. 1.” Here are nearly 20 minutes of diffused light: strings and drone instruments chiming in concurrent, complementary, but unstructured melodies. This way “No. 1″ comes off as layered but patternless, although literally shimmering and very literally cascading (note also his reference to “the narrow stream” in the liner notes). What makes Riftmusic difficult gives voice to the only conceivable criticism of *SKURA as a whole: for a project inspired by, and often meant to simulate nature, there are very few storms. Listen instead to Disc Four, the first installment of Landings, issued under the Carousell mark in June 2006. Also a single, extended track, Landings 2006 is a slow, black-and-white, low-register portent. The distillment here is moody, menacing and hypnotic: the formation of a necessary storm, the polarization of light under heavy cloud cover.

*SKURA: current works, from June 2007

After the Riftmusic debut, Skelton released Box of Birch as A Broken Consort, probably the archetypal release in terms of his singular packaging ethic (an edition of 28, named literally: a box of birch). Moreover — for the listener who travels through *SKURA chronologically — Box of Birch is the point where we begin to recognize the Richard Skelton in his current incarnation: confident, deliberate. Clearer in voice and style and intent. The Heidika responsible for There Is No Cure starkly different from the one who imprints Tide Of Bells & The Sea (Disc Ten). The composing is still mournful and challenging, but more rewarding with each successive release. Box of Birch track “Weight of Days,” for example, tells a moving narrative both textually and otherwise; a delicate, scarcely-moving, and reflective arrangement for violin and cello. As always, the natural world serves as both inspiration and audience. It is an eight-minute exploration into types of silence.

Skelton’s more up-to-date works leave much more discernible wakes, and the reader is likely more familiar with, say, Black Swallow & Other Songs, From Which The River Rises, or the three-year anniversary sequel to Landings. Reviewing the first of those three (Disc Thirteen), Alex Gibson noted the “occasional chiming percussion, flickering guitar and field hiss” that “fade in and out through the persistent string work,” concluding, that the work is “weighty fare, and demands as much as it returns.” Of Clouwbeck’s From Which The River Rises (Disc Fifteen), Michael Vitrano described “overwhelming strings piled over, on top and around one another, rushing in like the balanced undulations of a river,” stating unambiguously, “Skelton again triumphs.”

The second incarnation of Landings (Disc Fourteen) needs truly little introduction, lauded nearly universally by those who have heard it. The listener would be forgiven for concluding that this is Skelton’s masterpiece: thematically whole, exquisite in texture, aching, infectious, timeless. For a collection that shares so much blood and root with the natural world, the violins never sound so alive as they do here. The breaths between sounds, the silences between tracks: never so urgent. It is difficult to resist the word culmination, even when it is not clear whether the artist has achieved more height, or depth, or gravity. There should be a new word, one that implies all three.

With so much familiar water to navigate: let us not forget that there is also some new material to be had.

*SKURA, and a question

“Wingless” (There Is No Cure), was previously unreleased. “Ford” (Marking Time), is “a newly commissioned piece.” Several tracks were hidden along the way, and revealed here in full. Dyad features three alternate versions of previously-released tracks. A Dead Bridges Into Dust was released in November 2005, and the first Landings album dropped in June 2006: both were limited to nine copies. It is certain that the listener will find plenty of new music in the first 19 albums, but the last is a full-length record of altogether original material: seven tracks, 57 minutes, four different faces of the taxonomy.

The album opens with “Bark, Xylem,” by Heidika (that the *SKURA disc features four pseudonyms, a “Part Two” and an alternate version suggests that these songs are drawn from earlier sessions, and not necessarily composed since, say, February 2010). “Bark” is not out of place, to be sure. A hazy violin and ringing guitar put sound to the two propositions of the song title. Skelton names nothing accidentally, so the interested reader should note that xylem is a vascular tissue in some plants, similar to veins in animals, although in this case the lifeblood is a stream of fluid and nutrients. The song moves in scarcely-perceptible waves, and quietly nourishes.

“Proximity” is aptly titled. This Carousell arrangement features an in-the-same-room lead violin, turbulent cello flooring, and disengaged swells of cymbal. The listener can only wonder if Skelton gets enough credit: a track like this from a lesser-known artist would make the album. *SKURA ends with “The River Beneath,” nearly 20 minutes of A Broken Consort, likely the most fascinating of Skelton’s seven aliases. It is an optimistic turn, telling piano notes placed barely within view from one another, among hectares of strings, cymbal, and near-hidden processing. This is a fitting last chapter, perhaps a vow for a change of direction going forward.

So here is the question: is it all too much?

*SKURA represents 20 discs, over 90 tracks, no fewer than 20 songs exceeding 10 minutes in length, including one that exceeds 35 minutes. The reprises, the alternate versions, the pseudonyms, the sequels, the moors, the poetry, the beyond-tempo pacing, the timeless hum, the anguished violin and brittle guitar: is it overwhelming? It is a fair question, asking whether *SKURA becomes excessive. The best wine comes in a five-ounce pour, not a gallon jug. Any steak worth eating, a six-ounce, maybe eight-ounce cut. Is 12 hours of any one artist simply too much?

No. Quite the contrary, especially for the newcomers. Comparing *SKURA to food or drink, for example, poses a false dichotomy where small amounts signal refinement, and where larger quantities verge into excess. Think of it instead as a place, a great forest, maybe, meant for stealing away, getting lost, reflecting, and being found again. The larger the place, the better the chances for becoming mislaid. The more exhilarating the return, or the state of being returned, or not.

- Fred Nolan for Fluid Radio

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