Zyggurat - Broken Circle

The Hardy Tree – Common Ground
Frances Castle is the illustrator/owner behind the Clay Pipe record label and The Hardy Tree is her on- going musical project. Common Grounds was started at the beginning of the 2019 pandemic - when time moved very slowly and travel away from home became impossible. 
“Like many others with extra time on my hands I walked the streets of my neighbourhood for exercise and well-being. I rambled like I might in the country side; stopping every now and then to take in the view, or notice something I’d missed before. I took to looking up local streets in historical newspapers, and read reports of murders and deaths and robberies that had happened in the past.  I researched the names of the people who had lived in my house before me, viewed old census returns from the surrounding area, and noted the birth places and livelihoods of past residents. I began to see the ghosts of these people on my walks, and notice the things that they had left behind; shapes of ancient tram tracks creeping under the tarmac, an old gas street light in an alley way, a tiny metal sign indicating a culverted  river.   I spent my evenings writing and recording the music on this LP and then the following day would listen to the rough mixes as I walked, the music began to soundtrack the walks, and the walks began influencing the type of music I was creating.”
Frances Castle 2022

01 A Garden Square In The Snow

04 Bicycle Ballet

Tyneham House
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 other worldly 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 illustrations. In 2016 Clay Pipe reissued it on 10” vinyl, in an edition of just 300, it has since become sort after on the secondary market. The new 2023 pressing is on blue and transparent marbled vinyl, with 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.

09 The Ragged Cat

Cate Brooks – Easel Studies

Release Date: 28th July 2023

Coloured Vinyl LP/ CD / Digital

Cate Brooks is back with her 7th release for Clay Pipe Music, never one to stand still, ‘Easel Studies’ finds Cate pushing the boundaries of sound synthesis on the Buchla Music Easel.

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.

At 11:58, Barrie walked past, completely ignoring my house. Obviously concerned, I stood at the door and waited for him to walk back toward his van. As he came back, he smiled and I called out, quizzically “Barrie?”. His reply was “Yes I have!” and walked back to his van, collecting a large box and bringing it to my door. I remember the weather was muggy and my neighbour was attending to her rose bushes, as the cheery and helpful postie deftly navigated around her busy secateurs.

I took the box inside, opened the top and just looked at the inner box for a while. I took a photo of it, which I still have. It felt like quite a momentous occasion, because I felt that this instrument would take me to different sonic spaces than I was used to. It wasn’t my first experience with Don Buchla’s instruments by any means, as I’d learned to use his 200e system. But this was quite a different beast.

My cat Brillo came to inspect the box and I set the Music Easel up on the floor and plugged it in. The result of that very first experiment became “Pendula”.

In the following days and weeks of that summer, I created many more experiments on the Easel, quite often with Brillo either sat on me as I played, or trying to climb up on the instrument itself, attempting to move the faders and switches himself.

By the end of August, I had amassed some thirty-something pieces, which I put aside for future reference. I had learned a lot about this instrument, its idiosyncrasies, subtleties and ways of working.

Sadly, Brillo died in September of 2015. I like to think that his last summer with me was a comforting experience, curling up and listening to the sonic experiments taking place, as he regularly did for the sixteen years he was with me. The first track on the album, “Con Brillo” is my little tribute to him.

Fast forward to 2021 and I rediscovered all of these experiments. Some were almost unlistenable, but some had a beguiling charm about them- perhaps the sound of someone not really knowing what they’re getting into. They needed mixing and balancing, so I set to work. I also wrote a new piece, with exactly the same recording chain, in the same way, in the same room. This became the suitably titled final track “Hindsight”. 

The Music Easel has remained a constant source of sonic worlds for me to explore. It because the main instrument on the album Agri Montana, for example and has cropped up on many other records I’ve made since.

I would especially like to thank David at Postmodular for selling the Music Easel to me, after phoning him and disturbing his Sunday afternoon outing to Hyde Park (sorry about that David). I always promised I would send him a copy of something I had produced on it, so hopefully he will enjoy Easel Studies.

As I finish writing this, I notice that it is, once more, exactly Midday. 

I hope you enjoy Easel Studies too.

Cate Brooks (21st of May, 2023).

06 Log On Log

03 Flowstate

Vic Mars – The Beacons
Clay Pipe Music is thrilled to announce "The Beacons," the enigmatic producer Vic Mars’ third LP for the label.  Since 2019’s ‘Inner Roads and Outer Paths’ his music has found a new audience having been used as the soundtrack to the game 'I am Dead' by British interactive studio Hollow Ponds. 
While his previous two albums were inspired by the pastoral landscapes of Herefordshire, 'The Beacons,'  embarks on a journey westward into Wales,  inviting listeners into the rugged terrain of the Brecon Beacons and the Black Mountains. Using a darker more ominous sonic palette, and pushing the sound of the Moog synthesizer to the fore, The Beacons captures the feel of mountains silhouetted against dramatic skies, craggy summits and the overall grandeur of the landscape and its rich folklore. 
Stories of plane crashes, a monument honouring a missing boy, and legends such the mysterious door within Llyn Cwm Llwch lake— said to open to an invisible island - all helped shape the making of the record. With the addition of live drums, viola, a Juno 60 and field recordings alongside his distinctive Mellotrons and flutes, Vic has explored new ground, but still maintained the melodic interest and home spun charm of his earlier records.
Although now based in London Vic grew up in Hereford, in winter time the distant ice capped peaks of the Beacons served as a childhood barometer, a hopeful indicator that the city might also be graced with snow. In better weather there were days out with family or friends, clambering up Pen-y-fan or visiting the beautiful waterfalls at Ystradfellte. All these formative experiences seep into the music on this record, weaving an enchanting spell that captures the vastness of the mountain ranges and the stories they tell.

09 The Obelisk

Jon Brooks - Pond i

Garden Gate - Magic Lantern
Clay Pipe is pleased to introduce Garden Gate, the musical project of North Country, New York-based artist Timmi Meskers.
With a clutch of acclaimed releases on labels such as Sunstone and Library of the Occult, notably The Dark Harvest LP (which received a 5-star review in Shindig) and the 2021 LP Blood Mansion. Garden Gate takes inspiration from the countercultural energy of the mid-to-late 1960s and the new occult revival of the period.
Magic Lantern is a collection of melancholy yet hopeful neo-classical library pieces with analogue electronic elements that originally soundtracked Audible Originals’ Strange Company audiobook. 
Here, Timmi explains how the project came about:
“The first glimmer of Magic Lantern flickered over the kitchen sink, if memory serves. I was cleaning up with a dear friend, author Roan Parrish, and we were discussing how we could collaborate creatively. Our first idea was that she would share prose to inspire my themes, and inversely, I would share a few original themes to inspire her writing. Before we knew it, what started as a handful of stories and songs, damp with soap suds, ended up becoming a fully scored audiobook anthology for Audible Originals called Strange Company.
As a long-time fan of soundtracks and library music, I was thrilled by the opportunity to see just how much emotion I could compress into the brief connecting links that would augment a furtive kiss, a painful psychic vision, or a breeze across the bones of a scorched landscape.
Midway through the recording process, my long-term relationship broke down, and Roan let me set up a field studio in her home. I found myself grasping at any beauty I could find in the hope that it would spill into the music. Several themes from an unrealised Garden Gate album about the life of Dion Fortune also found their way in (notably, the title track), and the score became a bit more personal than initially charted. In the doomed outsiders of Roan’s gorgeously creeping prose, it was hard not to see aspects of my own life, and there was catharsis and healing in the creation of the music that soundtracked her characters' lives.”

Timmi Meskers 2024

19 The Final Vision

09 Sea Legs (Main Theme)

07 Magic Lantern (Main Theme)

01 Company (Main Theme)

08 The Abouretum

01 Plantagenet Street In The Morning

 Villages, Hamlets And Fétes by Vic mars, due late summer 2015 on Clay Pipe. 12" LP. 

Vic Mars - Villages, Hamlets And Fétes

From the album The Land And The Garden. 12" LP > Pre-orders from 23 Nov 2015. www.claypipemusic.co.uk

Vic Mars - Collecting Pebbles And Stones

I’m not sure exactly what my plans for Clay Pipe were were in October 2010 when I finished recording The Hardy Tree’s 'The Fields Lie Sleeping Underneath' and decided to self release it on CD. I hand printed the cover in blue, using a miniature Japanese screen printing machine called a 'Print Gocco' and I catalogued it 'Clay Pipe 001', so perhaps I was more optimistic than I remember? It got picked up by Jarvis Cocker and played on his ‘Sunday Service’ show, the first pressing of 100 sold out, so I quickly pressed up 100 more, this time in Yellow Ochre. A president was set.

I discovered Michael Tanners music on MySpace, and we agreed that I would put out Thalassing which he had just completed with Kerrie Robinson. It came out mid January 2011, and with a second release  Clay Pipe was a proper label. This time I created the CD cover from scratch, Gocco printing onto 5”x 5” pieces of card and binding them together with cloth tape.

Neither of these albums have been available in physical form since, I’ve adapted the artwork and they have both been remastered for vinyl by Antony Ryan.

This is how I described them at the time:

The Hardy Tree – The Fields Lie Sleeping Underneath.

The music on 'The Fields Lie Sleeping Underneath' was inspired by Frances' local London neighbourhood, a soundtrack to the past beneath the pavements, its early grass covered hills, Victorian heyday, and 20th century sprawl. Recorded at home in an attic room over a year, she has patched and stitched together an orchestral jigsaw puzzle of sounds that hint at audio memories from lost kids 70 TV program's, ghost orchestras, cinema organs, folk song, and static and crackle.

Thalassing

'Thalassing' is a self titled CD by duo Michael Tanner and Kerrie Robinson.
 

Michael has made music under many guises Plinth, Cloisters and The A.Lords to name but a few as well as recording and playing live with Mark Fry and Sharron Kraus. Last year he released the brilliant 'Music for Smalls Lighthouse' on Second Language. Kerrie plays in Betika.

Thalassing was improvised in one night in front of projections of the sea, and is limited to 100 copies.

01 Harmony Hall

‘An entrancing record label built on a foundation of Arcadian sounds and gorgeous graphic design.’ Shindig. 

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