Vic Mars - The Land And The Garden

Limited edition of 500 hand-numbered copies

Reverse board mat cover and printed inner sleeve

Album download included, offer subject to expiration

Vic Mars is a Herefordshire-born musician now based in London; he spent more than a decade in Nagoya, Japan. In 2013 on a visit home to England, he was struck by reprints of vintage British Railway posters hanging in his brother's house.

Back in Japan, homesick and inspired by his childhood memories of the Herefordshire landscape, he started the initial recordings for The Land and the Garden, carefully piecing together string and Mellotron soundscapes using archaic tracker software, and recording to cassette tape. During this time he immersed himself in the music of British classical composers such as Gustav Hoist and Ralph Vaughan Williams, the minimalist work of Wim Mertens and 1970s children's BBC soundtracks such as those by Freddie Phillips and Vernon Elliot.

In 2014 with the album half finished, Vic moved back to the U.K. and after a period of disruption where his equipment was still in transit, he completed the record in spring 2015.

A quietly stunning full length from Vic Mars on the ever-reliable Clay Pipe label, The Land and The Garden takes a bucolic look at modern composition, with enticing reed instruments and Moondog-esque percussive lines weaving an understated poignancy into the compositions. It's instantly involving, a record unboastful of its melodic and arrangement achievements and sitting somewhere between Pascal Comelade, the afore-mentioned Moondog's most melodic work and something somehow quintessentially British and nostalgic, in the best possible way.

 

Side 1

Walking On A Bearing

Butterflies, Bees And Other Insects

Collecting Pebbles And Stones

Wall Of Ivy

Hedgerows And Conservation

Villages, Hamlets And Fetes

Fences, Railway Lines And Other Obstacles

Side 2

The Road Through The Village

A Stone Path

Hiking Attire

Rural Etiquette

Through The Gate

Sunrise At Trig Point

Bracken And Grassland

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