RICHARD SKELTON
Marking Time
PRE018
Preservation 2008
07 Tracks. 40mins54secs

Richard Skelton doesn’t mark time in the sense of someone wading through the nugatory paradise of the weekend, but of someone partaking in an attentive re-collection of moments, corroded and crumbling. There’s no point in progress in a work such as this. Skelton embraces entropy at a stroke and only continues to settle in. Continue Reading »

AARON MARTIN
River Water
PRE026
Preservation 2008
10Tracks. 46mins56secs

River Water is a more varied and energetic outing than Aaron Martin’s sober debut, Almond, published on Australian imprint Preservation in 2006. Martin takes the ephemeral world music concept and pushes it forward boldly, and although it’s something of a bitty collection, it’s one packed with episode and intense detail.

The compositions are finely detailed with a bevy of instruments – cello and violin feature predominantly, backed by flute, singing bowls, spanish bells, mandolin, harmonica, ukulele, and a variety of other non-conventional instruments. Martin’s playing is generally flinty, and he oscillates between backgrounds that are relatively sparse to other more heavily textured, a decision which allows the music to be both intimate and suggestive of a grand scale. Continue Reading »