While Richard Skelton has long been one of my favorite artists, he has not released anything new in a while that has captivated me quite like he did the first time that I heard him.  That is not to say that he has experienced any sort of creative decline or anything, but he is definitely an artist who tends do one specific thing brilliantly, which regrettably tends to yield diminishing returns with increased familiarity.  With this follow-up to their Wolf Notes collaboration, however, Skelton and Autumn Richardson alchemically transform some of their previous recordings into something quite new and unexpected.
2011's Wolf Notes, Richard and Autumn's first album together, was a bit of a complicated album for me to process.  I certainly liked it when it came out (and still do today), but it felt like a bit of a lateral move for Skelton rather than a clear step forward.  On one hand, Autumn's vocals made Richard's music seem much more warm, human, and accessible.  On the other hand, the presence of a vocalist (by necessity) deflected focus from Skelton's heaving swells and creaks of bowed strings and their vibrant harmonic wake.  The reason that I bring all that up is quite simple: Succession is culled from the exact same recordings as Wolf Notes.  In fact, the opening title track sounds like it is essentially a reprise of Wolf Notes' closing "Return."
The reason for that is a bit convoluted and wordy, as there is a lot of backstory and conceptual artistry going on behind the scenes.  The short version is this: in late 2011, Richard and Autumn returned to the place (Ulpha) where they had recorded the raw material for Wolf Notes in 2009. In contemplating how the Cumbrian landscape had changed and how the differences in accumulated layers of sediment maintain a natural record of a place's history, the duo were inspired to view their own music like the place that spawned it.
Consequently, Succession returns to a very similar place musically: a place in which some things are the same and some are different, but the raw material is the same as ever.  The actual songs are just the tip of the iceberg though, as Skelton and Richardson's immersion into their surroundings went much deeper than mere philosophical grist for another album: the physical copy of Succession included two related art/poetry pamphlets about the landscape, as well as the self-explanatory A List of Probable Flora.  While my interest in both poetry and botany is minimal at best, I have to admire the depth and scope of *AR's dedication to their themes.
As for the music itself, Succession is mostly just Wolf Notes Redux, only better and more long-form in nature.  Aside from the angelic vocal swells of "Succession," which are very Richardson-centric, most of the album focuses very squarely on Skelton's shimmering, churning strings.  In general, the mood is a melancholy/bittersweet one (particularly on "Wolfshou") and the structure is very loop-like and drone-inspired: *AR are quite content to allow a single motif to slowly fade in, then slowly fade out 15 or 20 minutes later with only the most subtle enhancements made along the way.  That said, the motifs in question are inevitably quite rich, singular, and visceral, which means that they never get boring or too mired in brooding.  Skelton is a genius at assembling texturally dynamic loops that feel simultaneously organic, physical, and mesmerizingly vibrant–a primal, undulating thicket of prickly harmonics and grinding strings will never, ever seem like navel-gazing mopery.
Nowhere does Skelton highlight that singular talent better than on the closing "Relics," which is an absolute masterpiece and like nothing else I have heard from him to date.  Structurally, it is not wildly different from the rest of the album, but it somehow feels much more like a locked-groove than usual (albeit a simultaneously warm, grinding, and achingly beautiful one).  It is not entirely a "locked-groove" though: as it progresses, it seems to get slower and deeper while a quivering nimbus of harmonics forms above the groaning, see-sawing strings...and then it all just gradually fades away.  Quite simply, it is a perfect, endlessly absorbing piece of music–I could listen to it forever.
I would say that the presence of "Relics" alone makes Succession absolutely essential, but Richardson and Skelton have also released a companion album (Echoless) that features an extended, unabridged version of the same piece (as well as a similarly lengthened version of "Succession").  I have no idea which is better, but I would err on the side of saying that more "Relics" is better than less "Relics."  In that sense, the nod goes to Echoless.  Otherwise, Succession (and Echoless as well, I suppose) is yet another fine Skelton/*AR release, but nothing that eclipses or departs dramatically from Richard's equally fine back catalog.  So, in essence, the most withering critique that I can muster here is "Richard Skelton is as characteristically great as ever, but he only surprised me with one song."  I think I can live with that.
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