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The Inward Circles

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The Inward Circles, “Scaleby” (Corbel Stone Press, 2017)

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This digital-only sister release to And Right Lines Limit and Close All Bodies is a suite of comparatively simple, warm, and straightforward drone pieces, which presumably explains why its companion warranted a physical release while Scaleby did not. That lack of fanfare makes sense, as Right Lines Limit is a far more complex and ambitious work that expands the limits of Skelton’s vision while this release is merely nine variations on a theme firmly within his comfort zone. 

I happen to be quite fond of that comfort zone though, as these bleary, churning reveries play much more to Skelton’s strengths than some of his more cosmic, universe-chewing excursions of late. While the recurring Inward Circles’ theme of obfuscation is still in full effect (there are no recognizable stringed instruments to be found), Scaleby nonetheless carves out its own lovely niche of languorously vaporous, dreamlike beauty beneath a patina of shifting crackle, grit, and hiss.

Scaleby takes its title and inspiration from one of Skelton’s favorite subjects: a body found in a bog. This particular one was clad in deer skin and was found in the small parish of Scaleby in Skelton’s beloved Cumbria. I am uncertain how great a role our stylish bog-friend may have directly played in the shaping of the actual music here, but Scaleby gamely continues The Inward Circles’ fascination with the themes of burial, decay, and transformation. In more practical terms, the consistent thread that runs throughout the album is that of gently undulating and blurred synth-like drones, though those drones undergo varying degrees of decay and disruption. 

Presumably, those tones were originally produced using bowed strings or something similarly organic, but they have since been smeared and smoothed into soft-focus unrecognizability. On early pieces, such as the brief “Scaleby, I,” Skelton leaves their placid languor relatively unmolested, which results in an aesthetic not unlike a gently rippling pool of murky, viscous liquid. Later, that changes quite a bit, imbuing Scaleby with a mysterious and deepening arc. 

Obviously, parallels to an actual bog are unavoidable here, as Scaleby feels like a slow descent from the surface to the depths, unlocking some dark and long-buried secrets along the way. To his credit, Skelton employs a light touch in that endeavor, avoiding bombast or gloom and instead allowing the darkness to gradually creep in as increasingly corrosive textures obscure and fray the central motif.

Given that arc, it takes a few songs before Scaleby begins to develop into something more substantial. That transition starts to become evident with “Scaleby, III,” as Skelton’s calm, slow-moving drones are veiled behind a sizzling and blown-out-sounding harmonic cloud. The equally brief following piece performs a similar bit of alchemy, gnawing at the edges of the hazy idyll with a shifting snarl of crackle and hiss. That said, it is not until the album’s halfway point (“Scaleby, V”) that Skelton truly begins to stretch out and shape his main theme into something deeper and heavier, as the calmly submerged thrum disappears completely to make room for an oscillating and metallic swirl of uneasily harmonizing overtones. 

That largely sets the tone for the remainder of the album, as the four successive pieces are similarly gnarled and shadowy variations, ranging from murky throbbing (“Scaleby, VI”) to heavenly chords swathed in pulsing static (“Scaleby, VII”) to a dense and shimmering fog propelled by a heavy rhythmic undercurrent of rumble and hiss (“Scaleby, VIII”). Curiously, that descent into darker and darker waters arguably comes to an end with the closing centerpiece, “Scaleby, IX.” 

Rather than being more extreme than what came before, it instead feels like Scaleby‘s recurring central motif is finally given a chance to stretch out and blossom into an immersive, fully formed soundworld (rather than just providing a fleeting glimpse of one). While Skelton admittedly does not have any grand statement hidden up his sleeve for the finale, Scaleby‘s final act is nevertheless a satisfying coda of blearily melancholy arpeggios and gently swaying ambience viscerally ravaged by harshly grinding metallic textures.

Naturally, Scaleby has some arguable shortcomings, but they are largely a matter of perspective and somewhat inherent in what Skelton is trying to do here. For example, a lot of these songs are quite brief and blur together due to their thematic similarity and constrained palette. If Scaleby were billed as a major artistic statement, I suppose that would be problematic for me, but it is perfectly fine for a modest, digital-only extended fantasia on a single theme. In fact, I quite like it. 

While Scaleby may be a comparatively minor release for Skelton, it is nevertheless a well-executed and appealingly unusual drone album, as well as a very listenable, complete, and compact vision. Anyone hoping for another dose of The Inward Circles’ recent crushing epics of element force can probably give this one a pass, but most fans will likely find Scaleby to be an absorbing, simple, and pure oasis from Skelton’s more challenging and expansive fare.

Listen here.

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The Inward Circles, “And Right Lines Limit And Close All Bodies” (Corbel Stone Press, 2017)

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As a longtime Richard Skelton fan, I have been watching his recent trajectory with quite a bit of fascination, as he has been restlessly diving into increasingly varied and arcane territory while distancing himself further and further from his brilliant earlier work with each new release. While there are still some lingering vestiges of that vibrantly harmonic-strewn string work in his *AR project with Autumn Richardson, Skelton’s solo work as The Inward Circles is explicitly (and increasingly) intent on exploring an aesthetic of “burial, obfuscation and mythologization.” 

In fact, The Inward Circles often seems like a rather perverse name, as Skelton has seemingly ceased burrowing inwards and thrown himself into the epic, timeless, and vast. At times, that newly cosmic scope falls uncomfortably close to dark ambient (a genre that I am generally quite happy to avoid), but it can sometimes yield absolutely crushing and awe-inspiring results as well (Nimrod is Lost). This latest opus does not quite sustain the lofty heights of some previous Inward Circles classics, but it compensates with a slow-burning majesty that builds to a sustained and wonderful crescendo.

Unusually, this particular album does not seem focused upon a particular theme, though its digital-only sister release Scaleby centers around the discovery of a deerskin-clad “Ancient Briton” in the peat moorland of Northern England (a truly Skelton-esque inspiration indeed). For Right Lines, however, there is just a cryptic scattering of Nathaniel Tarn and Sir Thomas Browne lines that may very well be clues to nowhere. There is an unintentional theme to the album, however: it sounds better and better the louder I play it. 

The reasoning for that is quite simple, as its charms are generally not melodic ones. Rather, Right Lines seems to traffic in something approximating vast cosmic horror and existential dread, as early pieces like “The Soul Subsisting” are all about ominous, cavernous swells and gloomy, menacing harmonies—at least at first glance. At more extreme volumes, the textural richness begins to come out, as does the sharpness of some of the individual notes. 

Experienced in that engulfing and visceral way, the album’s seemingly weaker moments become kind of a crunching, grinding, and nerve-jangling nightmare. I have no idea if that was Skelton’s intention, but the immensity of his scale is scary regardless, as no one likes being confronted with their insignificance in the face of infinity or geological time. It may not necessarily be the sort of fare that I look to Richard Skelton for, but it diverges enough from artists like Lustmord to be relatively compelling.

Things start to get more inventive and lively with the album’s third piece, however, as “In An Hydropicall Body” is a shifting and oscillating cloud of feedback swells that would make Kevin Drumm proud. It even sounds like there is a processed high-hat or maraca in there at one point, conjuring up the surprising illusion that I am hearing an actual band of amplifier worshippers. Again, that is not traditionally Skelton-esque fare at all, but it is an intriguing experiment and it leads nicely into the trilogy of excellent pieces that comprises the real meat of the album.

The first is a brief exile from the Scaleby variations, “Scaleby, X,” a simple and perfect blur of woozily looping and quavering drones. The following “Nitre of the Earth” initially seems to reprise the brooding ambient gloom of the album’s earlier pieces, but it eventually blossoms into something more complex and gripping when a sharp and pulsing harmonic motif tears through the haze to give the piece some genuine bite and a wonderfully ugly cloud of dissonant harmonies. 

“Necks Was A Proper Figure” rounds out that hot streak with an aesthetic somewhere between “Scaleby” and “Nitre,” unveiling a muted and forlorn melodic loop that is disrupted by eerie swells and something that resembles a shuddering and garbled deep space transmission. As it progresses and obsessively repeats, it gradually snowballs in gnarled ferocity until it becomes quite a dense and vibrant howl of harsh textures and uncomfortable harmonies. 

Skelton could have safely stopped the album right there, but he opts to include one more substantial piece in the harrowing sustained roar “If The Nearness of Our Last,” which sounds like an dissonant mass of harmonically clashing choral samples over a layer of phase-shifting grinding. It is certainly heavy, but a bit limited.

The album draws to an unexpectedly quiet close with the muted “Scaleby, XI,” which feels a lot like a submerged version of its predecessor. It is a solid (if unexceptional) end to a solid (and occasionally great) album. Trying to maintain some semblance of objectivity when I am passionate about an artist is always hard, as I am unavoidably in the thrall of preconceived expectations and want every album to be better than the last. 

Richard Skelton, on the other hand, has completely different priorities than I do: namely, 1.) not repeating himself, and 2.) absorbing an eclectic array of new and often non-musical influences into his artistic vision. On those grounds, Right Lines is a very successful album, albeit one with a few weaknesses (an occasional over-reliance on the power of amorphous cinematic brooding, a few comparatively less inspired pieces, and a weaker thematic focus than usual). 

Those grievances are mostly eclipsed by the awe-inspiring elemental force Skelton unleashes when he hits the mark though. Also, a few pieces, such as “Nitre of the Earth” and “Necks Was A Proper Figure” easily stand with some of Skelton’s finest work. As “Scaleby, X” and “In A Hydrologicall Body” are not far behind, it feels apt to view Right Lines as a stellar EP that has been padded out with a few experiments that do not quite fully connect…or perhaps an extremely promising transitional album. Either way, there is a lot to love here, even if it does not quite add up to a fresh masterpiece.

Listen here.

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The Inward Circles, “I have heard a music and it is delirious” (Aeolian/Corbel Stone Press, 2015)

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At this point, it is quite clear that The Inward Circles project is the home for Richard Skelton’s darker impulses, dealing primarily in brooding ambiance, churning violence, and grinding horror. The big difference between Skelton and similar artists, however, lies in his scope and intensity. This latest EP, a soundtrack to Skelton’s short film Beyond the Fell Wall, does not disappoint in those regards, as Skelton essentially creates an melancholy and spectral world, then ferociously rips it apart. 

Unfortunately, it does not quite scale the heights of either The Inward Circles’ debut or Skelton’s amazing previous soundtrack (Memorious Earth), being a bit too short, bombastic, and single-minded to offer much more than a satisfyingly heavy catharsis. It is still a solid and worthy release, but it is not quite “Richard Skelton” good.

The film Beyond the Fell Wall is haunting series of black and white images of desolate landscapes, stones, and trees accompanying a portentous naturalist fable that describes how rivers built the world and how the power of the rivers and their successors was eventually usurped by men (who are now, of course, dismantling the world). 

In that context, I suppose I have heard a music works fairly well, providing the voice of Don McCorkindale with an eerie backdrop of deep, menacing drones and ghostly, melancholy snatches of melody. Essentially, the film is an elegy and a tour of desolation and ruin, despite its reminiscences of singing rivers and happy birds, so the unrelentingly dark tone is appropriate (if laid on a bit too thick). Taken by itself, however, I have heard a music is a bit too heavy-handed, back-loaded, and monochromatic to stand with Skelton’s better work.

The main problem is just that there is not any real beauty to be found, as it is essentially built upon little more than a hollow and ominous loop that gradually snowballs from “dark ambient” territory into a fearsome apocalypse. To borrow the grammar of film criticism, the stakes are simply not high at all here, so the gathering storm does not elicit any emotion from me nor does it feel all that threatening. Skelton just quickly transitions from melancholy brooding to an eruption of demonic fury. 

While I certainly appreciated the eruption, I did not miss the brooding at all. The least bit of beauty, tenderness, or fragility could have made that climax considerably more meaningful. Thankfully, there is a consolation prize: it is still quite a spectacular show of nightmarish force, as well as an impressive bit of sound design. When I have heard a music breaks open, it sounds like hell itself has opened up to consume the world with infernal entropy. The 8-minute mark is especially horrific, evoking nothing less than the creeping approach of giant, grinding rusty blades.

To its credit, the few issues that I have with I have heard a music are somewhat unusual and relative ones. For one, it feels weirdly condensed and rushed at only 19 minutes. I like what it ultimately becomes, but it feels like it gets there too quickly to amass the necessary tension. Also, it feels curiously undecided about whether it wants to be a soundtrack or not. The first third is very minimal and all atmosphere, serving as a very effective backdrop for a film, but not quite compelling enough to be satisfying on its own. The rest of the piece, however, would easily overpower any film (and consequently is mostly omitted from said film). It feels like Skelton reworked the musical component of a more ambitious multimedia statement (there is also a “Beyond the Fell Wall” book) in hopes of creating something that could stand on its own and only succeeded partially. 

I have heard a music is also the victim of its timing: had it come out five years ago, I probably would have loved it. Instead, however, it is released in the wake of several career-defining triumphs, so my expectations have been considerably jacked-up by this point and I am quite a bit harder to impress. Skelton fans will still undoubtedly enjoy this EP, as it showcases his rarely surfacing “grinding cosmic horror” side and offers some rewarding headphone listening, but it is ultimately a fairly minor release within his discography.

Listen here.
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The Inward Circles, “Belated Movements for an Unsanctioned Exhumation August 1st 1984” (Corbel Stone Press, 2015)

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I can always count on Richard Skelton to find the strangest and most unexpected inspirations for his albums and he does not disappoint me with his latest: Belated Movements is largely based upon the “Lindow Man,” a well-preserved body found in a peat bog in the ’80s. As far as ancient bog bodies go, Lindow Man surely ranks among the most hapless, having met a violent (possibly ritualistic) death by being strangled AND having his throat cut, then getting freeze-died and displayed in a museum two thousand years later. Given that base material, it is hardly surprising that Movements is a much more sadness-steeped affair than any of Skelton’s other recent work, resembling nothing less than an atypically industrial-damaged and time-stretched requiem.

I have to admit that I was a bit caught off-guard by this album for a number of reasons. The primary one is that it plunges wholeheartedly back into the free-floating melancholy that characterized much of Richard’s earlier work. His more recent work has not exactly been cheery, but his career trajectory has thus far largely been away from gloom and towards something more timeless, vibrant, and organic (albeit with some exceptions, of course). Also, Belated Movements does not particularly sound like an evolution or continuation of The Inward Circles’ debut; rather, it feels kind of like an unrelated one-off project. The only real thread linking the two is that they focus on Skelton’s more long-form compositions. In fact, Belated Movements even raises the bar in that regard, dividing its hour-long running time into just three pieces.

The first and longest piece, “Petition for Reinterment,” is the album’s funerary centerpiece. Structurally, it is deceptively simple, as it is based primarily upon an endlessly repeating two-note cello or double-bass drone, though that framework eventually dissolves completely (just like the skeleton of a bog man!). Later, however, it reappears somewhat changed and essentially carries on to form the basis of the second piece (“To Your Fox-Skin Chorus”) as well. 

The stated theme of “Petition” is “decay and renewal” and those transformations are largely where the piece’s beauty lies: not much happens melodically at all, but the glacially ebbing and flowing swells undergo some fascinating dynamic and textural changes over the course of the nearly 30-minute running time. I was actually expecting an escalating rotting and rusting dissonance a la Michael Gordon’s deeply unsettling score for Decasia based upon Skelton’s own description of the album, but instead Richard’s bowed strings get increasing overloaded and blown-out sounding, as well as embellished with some grindingly metallic textures and quavering dissonances. It all gets quite heavy and nightmarish by the time it reaches its crescendo. That said, it is quite a slow-burning and nuanced piece, so it takes some focused attention to fully appreciate its dark majesty. Without headphones or high volume, it loses a lot of its power.

The shorter “To Your Fox-Skin Chorus” is not radically different, but sounds a lot more metallic and industrial: there is a constant looping throb and some of Skelton’s bowed strings have an atypically harsh and more reverberant texture, like they were recorded in an empty parking garage or factory. Those more menacing elements are balanced by something that sounds like recurring classical horn loop that makes the piece feel like a Ravel performance bleeding into a noise show held in a sewer or cavern, which is quite an appealing niche. 

Eventually, “Chorus” segues into the closing “Canis, Lynx, Ursus,” which makes Belated Movements feel like one single epic piece rather than three discrete ones. “Canis” ultimately divulges quite a bit from the rest of the album, however, as its slow-motion bowed strings gradually blossom into a somber, descending piano motif. To my ears, Skelton lays on the sadness a bit too thick for his own good, but he almost overcomes that fundamental problem by embellishing the central melody with a periphery that is a singularly Richard Skelton-esque tour de force: a churning thicket of moaning and howling strings and sharp harmonics that gradually swells to a roaring intensity. Sadly, it never gets quite loud enough to fully drown out the piano, but it is still quite a visceral and beautiful way to end the album.

As far as recent Richard Skelton albums go, this is solid, but it falls a bit short of his truly top-shelf material: there is nothing on Belated Movements that comes close to rivaling pieces like the instantly gratifying, stone-cold brilliance of Nimrod‘s “Two Opposed Leaves” or Succession‘s “Relics.” Also, the oppressive sadness of “Canis, Lynx, Ursus” drags down an otherwise spectacular piece—if not the entire album, given how the three sections blur together. 

That said, Skelton has long been one of my favorite artists, so I basically expect him to exclusively churn out masterpieces forever, which is completely unreasonable. While I do not expect that mindset to change anytime soon, I can certainly accept that it colors my judgment somewhat pessimistically at times. Despite my grumblings, Belated Movements is a perfectly fine album and takes an ambitious stylistic detour, as this is an unusually long-form and melodically minimalist album and I always love to see Skelton trying new things rather than repeating himself. New fans would be better served by starting elsewhere, but longtime fans will definitely find plenty to enjoy here (if “enjoy” is truly the right word for elegiac meditations on the fox as psychopomp or the extinction of the lynx).

Listen here.

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The Inward Circles, “Nimrod is Lost in Orion and Osyris in the Doggestarre” (Corbel Stone Press, 2014)

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Richard Skelton has a long history of shifting monikers, unusual concepts, and stylistic evolutions, but this latest project still came as a bit of a surprise to me, as it does not particularly sound like a Richard Skelton album at all. Not at first, anyway. Rather, it sounds a bit like a warmer variation on classic Lustmord or one of Steve Roach’s space-themed albums—a far cry from Skelton’s vibrant and organic signature blend of bow-scrapes and rich, shimmering harmonics. 

After a few listens, however, it becomes evident that Skelton’s aesthetic is still perfectly intact, but has been slowed down and stretched to something approximating geologic time (appropriate, given his well-documented non-musical interests). While Nimrod is definitely not representative of what Richard historically does best, it is nevertheless a deep and absorbing listen, boasting at least one piece that is probably as great as anything in the space music canon.

There are many aspects of Skelton’s artistry that I find endearing, but one of the less obvious ones is that it feels like his recent music is only the tip of an intriguingly cryptic and deeply personal iceberg. I also appreciate that he only seems to surface these days when he has something new and unusual to say. Exactly what he is saying, of course, usually remains a pleasant mystery to me, but he certainly cannot be faulted for failing to provide enough supporting information. 

As with many recent Skelton efforts, Nimrod‘s music is closely intertwined with text—in this case, an evocative book of re-purposed literary quotations (Da Vinci, Christina Rossetti, Rilke, etc.), close-up photography of bark patterns, and word-collages rooted in detourned forestry documents. Surprisingly, given the album’s title and the actual music, the writings are mostly a fairly earthbound (albeit eclectic) series of meditations on trees, light, shadow, the sea, and solitude. The album and song titles, on the other hand, are all tied to the writings of English polymath Sir Thomas Browne, so I suspect everything ultimately traces back to him in some way.

Musically, Nimrod generally resembles a Richard Skelton album being played at a much slower speed and deeper pitch. I have no clue how the album was constructed, but there is little that can be readily identified as violin or bowed guitar, though the sounds could have certainly originated from either (and then been laptopped into unrecognizability). 

In a more specific sense, most of Nimrod sounds like warm, layered, slow-moving drone swells made from a cello or double-bass. That is certainly pleasant, but the album’s best pieces merely use that as the starting point for something a bit more unique and mesmerizing. “Ancient Arithmetic of the Hand,” for example, augments its dreamy thrum with a ghostly, quavering haze and a deep, insistent throb, while “Glimpses Of The Empyreal Light” sounds like an older-style Skelton piece beset by ominous, subterranean shudders.

Nimrod‘s two highlights are even more radical in their transformation of Skelton’s aesthetic. “Two Opposed Leaves At The Root” is the album’s masterpiece, weirdly reminding me of Aphex Twin’s wheezing, lurching NIN remix (in name, at least) “At The Heart Of It All,” which is not at all something I would normally expect to be referencing in regards to a Richard Skelton album. 

Remarkably, Skelton manages to one-up Richard James though, as the pulse of “Two Leaves” transcends mere rhythm to sound like something enormous and metal being endlessly bent and crushed by powerful exterior forces. I have never heard anything else quite like it and it is absolutely beautiful in its context. “And In Their Groves Of The Sun This Was A Fit Number” is not quite that stunning or unique, but works on a similarly grand scale. In fact, there is even some similar crunching, but it is quite distant and strangely soothing as it is slowly enveloped by the piece’s warm, engulfing roar.

I would not necessarily say that there are any weak pieces at all on Nimrod, but the album’s lengthiest work (“An Art to Make Dust of All Things”) seems comparatively uninspired to me, as its cold emptiness and deep metallic swells seem too much like the territory of previous space-minded ambient artists without any substantial improvement upon the formula (though it was bit surprising to hear a (buried) percussion loop). It is a perfectly fine piece, but it just does not feel like it belongs on this particular album by this particular artist. In all other respects, however, Nimrod is an absolutely wonderful, beautifully realized, and unexpected album (and “Two Leaves” is easily one of the finest pieces in Skelton’s entire discography).

Listen here.