Richard Skelton

Who is Richard Skelton?

Richard Skelton is a British musician. Following the death of his wife Louise in 2004, he began to make music as a way of coming to terms with the tragedy. His music, which uses a number of instruments – principally guitar and violin, has been compared with that of Arvo Pärt among others. His recordings explicitly reference places of emotional resonance, specifically the West Pennine Moors, and the area around the sparsely populated parish of Anglezarke. His album Landings has been compared with Brian Eno's Ambient 4: On Land in its evocation of place and memory. Skelton even goes so far as to include artefacts, such as twigs and alder catkins, from significant places in the packaging of his releases.

Most of Skelton's releases have been issued by his own Sustain-Release label - under a range of pseudonyms including A Broken Consort, Carousell and Riftmusic, as well as under his own name - in small editions of CDs with hand-crafted packaging, and often including fragments of poetry. However, some of Skelton's work has attained wider commercial and critical success.

In 2011, Skelton archived the material he had released on Sustain-Release.