Born in Lancashire, multi-instrumentalist Richard Skelton draws on memory and landscape to create compositions that layer bowed strings and field recordings. He started making music as a response to the death of his first wife, Louise, in 2004, and his extended drones are often evocative of longing and loss.

Skelton started releasing music in 2006 on his own label, Sustain-Release, and has worked under different aliases, including A Broken Consort, Carousell, Clouwbeck, Harlassen, Heidika and Riftmusic. His latest work in collaboration with his wife, Canadian poet and musician Autumn Richardson, is released under the name *AR, on Corbel Stone Press. Skelton and Richardson run the press from their home in Broughton Mills, Cumbria, releasing recordings, books, pamphlets and prints.

Skelton was recently nominated for an Arts Foundation Award in experimental music (alongside Lina Lapelyte, Rie Nakajima and Jennifer Walshe). He'll be performing a new work at London Southbank Centre’s New Experimentalists concert along with other nominees on 14 January.