Ach, he’s only bloody gone and done it again. I love Landings Skelton’s 2010 album of ragged string studies, which was one of my first forays into the world of what Boomkat used to call Home Listening / Modern Classical / Ambient. I love the epic drone of Limnology, and I was bowled over by the piano-laced Border Ballads. I was excited when he started incorporating electronics into his sound around 2020’s These Charms May Be Sung Over A Wound, but that record didn’t 100% hit the spot for me.
But this, this is another instant favourite. There’s a wonderful balance to the blend of scraped strings and ambient fuzz. It’s apparently inspired by the dark skies around the Kielder Observatory, and by the insomnia which led to him seeing quite so much of them. And maybe I’m being too easily suggestible here, but it seems that the music has a something of that hazy-yet-twitchy feeling you get where you’re conscious but if feels like parts of your brain aren’t fully wired up and things look different in the thin light and sheer exhaustion has altered your relationship to reality and you don’t understand time any more. But, y’know, in a good way. I find this is a record that needs to be turned up loud — it would just get lost as background music — but it’s hugely rewarding when you let it do it’s thing to you. (Unlike insomnia, which sucks.)
I bought this from Boomkat. They call it Modern Classical / Ambient.
dogrando writes about some records 