Frances Castle
I’m not sure exactly what my plans for Clay Pipe were were in October 2010, I had just 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 about starting a label 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 became 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.

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, ghost orchestras, cinema organs, folk song, and static and crackle.