As
the days get shorter and the winter solstice approaches, here are a few
seasonal offerings from Clay Pipe to hopefully give you some cheer. All items are available from our Greedbag and Bandcamp shops. ALL SOLD OUT
The Clay Pipe Calendar returns for 2026, featuring artwork from across the label’s catalogue.
There’s also a new set of four greetings cards, each depicting a character from European Christmas and Yuletide folklore.
After many requests over the past year, I’ve finally made a Giclée print of Cate Brooks’ Lofoten artwork — a super-high-quality print on textured Hahnemühle German Etching paper, signed and numbered in an edition of just 40.
We also have the new Clay Pipe Music canvas accessory pouch with embroidered logo.
All items are available now while stocks last. If you’re based outside the UK, you’ll find shipping cheaper via the Greedbag shop.
Oneiric has been picking up some great reviews, here’s what the papers say:
“It’s such a listenable album, weird and woozie in
places, clear and direct in others. Just like your dreams… I’ll wager
you’ll find yourself listening to it two or three times in a row the
first time you put it on” Moonbuilding
“A masterclass in eclecticism” Shindig!
“A pupil-flicking riot of joyous befuddlement” Electronic Sound
“TNT-period Tortoise with a nostalgically psychedelic twist” Uncut
“Blissed-out sounds with a few chills from Nordic dreamweaver” Prog Magazine
“Songs presenting themselves as wistful meditations, and others transporting the listener to realms beyond our comprehension” Far Out Magazine
Read an interview with Arne on the Clay PipeSubStack
________________
Clay Pipe Music is thrilled
to welcome to the label
Norway’s Rural
Tapes
- the alias of producer
and multi-instrumentalist Arne Kjelsrud Mathisen.
His
new record Oneiric is one for the dreamers - a trippy,
cosmic aural experience of mostly instrumental music, recorded on
analogue equipment at his Nygrenda Vev & Dur studio in rural
Norway. Arne is also joined on two vocal tracks by long-time
collaborators Alexis Taylor (Hot Chip) and Gary Olson (The Ladybug
Transistor).
He
says: “The word Oneiric refers to things connected with dreams.
I've drawn inspiration from the strange, surreal, humorous,
imaginative, and vividly colourful experiences that often unfold
within them.”
“I
have played with genres, sounds and timbres and put together pieces
of music that I think could be the soundtrack to a dream sequence. I
love the way a dream can be so bizarre and yet still feel so natural,
and I can relate to that otherworldliness in the way I compose and
put together musical pieces. Some songs have a clear structure, some
have not, some are minimalist, some are maximalist, some are wistful
and some are joyful, but I think all of them are quite colourful and
playful.”
“I’ve
taken inspiration from many different music eras and many different
corners of the world, from quirky British music to French dream pop
to the 60s New York tape music scene to ambient and psychedelic
music. The music is created hands on using old analogue gear
such as tape machines, dictaphones, tape echoes and more to colour
the music and give the sounds the right textures. This way I feel
connected to the music I make.”
Over
the past two decades, Arne has established himself as a key figure
in the Norwegian music scene. He has played in influential bands
including I Was A King and Heroes & Zeros, and more recently has
been releasing music and playing live with The No Ones —
alongside Peter Buck and Scott McCaughey and The Minus 5, and I Was A
King frontman Frode Strømstad.
He
launched his Rural Tapes
project in 2021 with
a self-titled debut which
established
his reputation for inventive, forward-thinking music. He
has continued to draw
widespread praise
across subsequent releases, including Inner
Space Music (2022)
and Contact
(2024).
David Boulter, best known as a long-time member of Tindersticks, returns to Clay Pipe Music with Whitby - an evocative mini-album inspired by the stark beauty and unsettling calm of England’s North Yorkshire coast.
Unlike the familiar seaside towns of his youth - Great Yarmouth, Scarborough, Filey - Whitby held no particular memories for Boulter until he visited with his family in the summer of 2024. "I’m constantly inspired by my surroundings, or memories of them," he says. "Sat on an almost deserted beach, halfway between Whitby and Sandsend, it really hit me. The absolute beauty - and how alien it seemed. It was quite a stormy day: grey skies coming in off the North Sea, sun breaking through. The way the light hit the rocks, scattered across the beach; the waves crashing. Walking up to the ruined Abbey at sunset, again almost deserted. I imagined human life disappeared."
That sense of stillness and natural drama became the emotional core of the album. "At a time when it seems we are pushing our planet to the edge, and the wars we rage continue, I felt such calm and connection to the landscape - and how simple beauty can be. The whale bones on the hill reminded me how we always take so much. But we can change."
As with much of his work, Boulter began composing in response to these experiences. On Whitby, the music takes on a more organic quality than his previous releases. While he initially made field recordings of the environment, he later chose to reinterpret them musically - using instrumentation to evoke the atmosphere of the coast: sitting on the beach, walking up by the Abbey, tracing the path of the old Cinder Track railway line.
The result is a quietly powerful musical meditation on history, landscape, and the enduring presence of nature.
There are imagined
landscapes we all carry within us—dreamed, half-remembered, or just
beyond reach. Lofoten,
the new album by Cate Francesca Brooks on Clay Pipe Music, is a
musical reflection on one such place.
Located above the
Arctic Circle, Norway's Lofoten Islands are known for their dramatic
peaks, open seascapes, and distinctive red fishing cabins dotting the
shoreline. Though Brooks has never visited this remote northern
region, it became an unexpected source of inspiration.
The project began
when Cate listened to a narrated "sleep story" set in the
islands. Intrigued, she researched the region and found herself drawn
to its stark beauty. "I fell in love with creating an impression
of somewhere I would probably never visit, but felt a real affinity
with," she explains.
This ambitious
album translates that connection into sound. Through carefully
crafted electronics, melodic themes, richly layered textures and big
production, Brooks captures the essence of Lofoten—its icy light,
vast horizons, and profound quiet.
"The other
thing that happened around the same time was the first lockdown here
in the UK. I had taken the opportunity of having some extra time to
learn a new (to me) method of synthesis; that of the Synclavier,
which uses one aluminium wheel and an array of buttons to control
every parameter of the sound.
"I took to it
with intrigue and before I knew it, I had built up hundreds of
original sounds, many of which were perfect for the textures I could
hear in my head for Lofoten. So that (along with a Prophet synth and
a TR-808) became the sound world."
Lofotenstands
as an evocative testament to how music can transport us to distant
places, transforming geographical limitations into imagined creative
possibilities.
Second edition available Friday 23rd May via - Bandcamp
Clay Pipe will be at the Independent Label Market on Saturday 10th May 2025 with lots of rare back stock, new stock, vinyl LPs, enamel badges, prints, Mini CDs, Flexi discs and test pressings!
Please drop me an email if you are coming and would like to reserve an item.
Clay
Pipe Music
invites you to take a journey through the Midlands countryside with
Frankley
My Dear–
a new Mini CD housed in a handmade box from Andy Baker’s The
Baker Fields.
The
5-track collection takes its cue from a bicycle ride through Andy’s
local area – past the duck pond at Lickey Hills, through Uffmoor
Woods (named after the great Mercian King Offa, where a carpet of
bluebells appears in spring), and on to Frankley Beeches, which
overlooks Birmingham. On Bonfire Night, people gather here to watch a
million fireworks across the city, and on quieter days, you might
hear the call of a Yellow Hammer. The journey also takes in the old
church in Romsley, named after St Kenelm, who was believed to have
been murdered on the nearby Clent Hills.
Each
track is infused with a fuzzy melancholy, melodic grace, and a gentle
psychedelic undercurrent – music shaped by quiet lanes,
half-forgotten landmarks, and the gentle passing of time.
Clay
Pipe Music is pleased to introduce London-based Anglo-Spanish
duo Micro Moon
- pianist/synthesist Isabel Pérez Castro and guitarist/synthesist
Stephen Holbrook.
Their
Mini CD Figure
in a Landscapeblends
classical piano with rich electronic textures and melodies, taking
you to diverse locations—from the sound mirrors of Romney Marsh in
Kent to the atmospheric Fábrica da Luz, or 'light factories,'
nestled in the Galician mountains of Spain. It’s a beautifully
crafted sonic journey inspired by the various regions they have hiked
and explored.
After
discussing a musical collaboration for years, the
couple finally
started working together during the early days of the pandemic,
experimenting with sound at home and teaching themselves production
along the way. This lead to their debut project Public
Health—a
work inspired by an exhibition at the Wellcome Collection on
historical public health initiatives, as well as Iain
Sinclair’s
book Living
with Buildings and Walking with Ghosts.
Iain
allowed them to use some spoken text from the book for their track,
City
Rites.
Drawing
on subtractive synthesis, drone music, the Radiophonic Workshop, and
psychogeography, Figure
in a Landscape
sees the duo crafting immersive compositions inspired by real-world
locations, transporting listeners into vivid aural environments.
Stagdale part 3is available from the Clay Pipe Greedbag shop and The Hardy Tree Bandcamp.
Frances
Castle presents the third part of her graphic novel Stagdale,
accompanied by a new soundtrack EP from her musical alter ego The
Hardy Tree.
Stagdale Part 3, drawn and written by
Clay Pipe Music founder Frances Castle, continues the story of Kathy
and Max—two strangers, a generation apart, who both unexpectedly
find themselves living in the isolated village of Stagdale. When twelve-year-old Kathy discovers a wartime
diary hidden behind the skirting board of the old cottage she and her
mother are renting, she is instantly captivated. As she delves into
its pages, she begins to suspect that the tale of the missing Stag
Jewel - told to her by her new friend Joe - isn't quite what it
seems. Could the diary hold the key to unravelling a mystery that's
been buried for 30 years?
A special edition of the book will include a Flexi
Disc featuring the title track “September 1975.” There will also
be a limited reissue of the original Flexi Disc editions from Books
1 & 2. Additionally, Book 2 has been reprinted with
a matt cover, so all three books in the series now have a more
cohesive look.
Also available from Greedbag on the 29th November will be coaster sets based on the artwork for Andrew Wasylyk and Tommy Perman's Ash Grey And The Gull Glides On and Risograph prints of The Hardy Tree's All the Hours.
Clay Pipe will be at Jonny Trunks Groovy Record Fayre on the 2nd November at The Mildmay Club, London, N16. Lots of hard to find back stock, as well as new releases, badges etc. Free entry from 10am. Hope to see you there.
