Wednesday, February 25, 2026

Welcome to Crispycat Recordings....

WELCOME TO CRISPYCAT RECORDINGS

We issue the solo and collaborative work of musician, abstract artist and podcaster 
DAVID REILLY aka CLOUDLAND BLUE QUARTET (CBQ)
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SITE DIRECTORY

This section is the
Cloudland Blue Diary
with daily entries from 
Sunday 5 March 2005
to
Tuesday 24 February 2026
 (Scroll down for the latest entries)

To go to another section of the site, click on an icon below

ABOUT    NEWS    MUSIC    PODCASTS    ART    RECOMENDED LISTENING
                         
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LATEST NEWS

New!

David has commenced work on new collaborational projects with both Edward Spark and Matthew Nowik (formerly Blue Sun Chasing).  No prospective release dates are yet known

Previous Items

The next CBQ album, "Materialisation", a collaboration with Brussels based saxophonist and electronic musician, Joe Higham, will be released on 6 March (see below)



Capital Models are rehearsing for a performance at a private event, which will also take place on 6 March



Crazy Wisdom are planning new music for 2026 and the start of this project is imminent


The re-issuing on Bandcamp of Creek's long-deleted back catalogue is set to recommence in the Spring of 2026


"Dissolution VI", the next in the CBQ series of albums of improvised piano and ambience, which has been running since 2021, will be recorded at the end of March and issued at the start of April (see below)



 On Record Store Day (11 April), "GLAM! FOUR", the fourth collection of, mostly, 1970s covers from CBQ, will be released (see below)



Currently, a further five soundscape and two song-based CBQ albums, recorded during 2025, are ready for release and scheduled to appear in 2026, between May and November (see below)

       

In June, the 30th anniversary of the first CBQ recordings will be celebrated with a new song-based compilation entitled "Drift (Slow Songs 1996-2026 30 Years of Cloudland Blue Quartet)" (see below)


The latest edition of David's weekly "Cloudland Blue Eclectic Selection" podcast was published on 15 February.  The last 10, of over 750 podcasts, are currently still available for listening (see below).

The latest edition, 2026 Volume 7, includes music by

KMRU, Martin Stürtzer, Paul Jarret, Cloudland Blue Quartet & Joe Higham, Causa Sui, Wooden Shjips, Joe Bonamassa, James Adrian Brown, Soft Machine, Charli xcx, Frank Zappa, JS Bach, Ligeti, Korngold, Ólafur Arnalds, No-Man, Angine de Poitrine plus many more...

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CRISPYCAT RECORDINGS ON BANDCAMP
To go to the Bandcamp discographies of these Crispycat related artists, click on an icon.

                    

Crispycat Recordings released the first 25 Cloudland Blue Quartet albums (recorded between 1996 and 2012) to Bandcamp in 2013.

A further 8 LPs were released between 2013 and 2019.

Then, with the advent of lockdown, David spent much more time on new Cloudland Blue Quartet works, with the result that, since May 2020, new music has been released almost every month, with over 90 further new releases having been issued in the last five years.

The current 12 strong pipeline (see below) will take matters to the end of 2026, beyond the 30th anniversary of Cloudland Blue Quartet's debut recordings, pushing the total CBQ releases available on Bandcamp to 140.

Meanwhile, retrospective releases by David's groups Creek, Crazy Wisdom and Capital Models have also been being issued by Crispycat Recordings and these are set to continue, with around 50 planned over the next 18 months or so...

In 2025, Crazy Wisdom and Capital Models also released new recordings, with seven new EPs from Crazy Wisdom and their remastered back catalogue, which you can find here; and, from Capital Models, two new studio LPs, a live LP and an update to their all encompassing "Repertoire" virtual box set, all of which, along with original recordings from 1980 and reunion tapes from 2011, can be found here...
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LATEST CLOUDLAND BLUE QUARTET RELEASE



As always from Crispycat Recordings, this release is entirely Free to Stream or Name Your Price (including zero) to Download (with bonuses)

"Low Peach Winter Sun" is the 40th Cloudland Blue Quartet soundscapes album - an almost purely ambient 80 minute work, separated into what would be 4 sides of a double LP

The download bundle contains two completely alternative versions of the album, adding around 160 minutes of music and giving an insight into how this developed from, initially, a "joint" work of synthesisers and Short Wave Radio, to being mainly a study on Short Wave Radio, to, finally, emerging as the almost purely ambient, Double LP/CD Length work presented in the main LP

The final album is music in the vein of previous ambient works "Cold Clear", "Gewitter", "Mercurial" and "Like a Sunday" and can be seen as a continuation of those

Sleeve notes contain diary entries for the three days of recording which produced the work"
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CLOUDLAND BLUE QUARTET RELEASE SCHEDULE

   

Friday, 6 March, 2026: Materialisation (with Joe Higham) (41st in The Soundscapes Series) (Recorded June and July 2025)
Friday, 3 April, 2026: Dissolution VI (6th in The Dissolution Piano Series) (to be recorded March 2026)
Saturday, 11 April, 2026 (Record Store Day)GLAM! FOUR (5th in the GLAM! Covers Series) (Recorded February 2023 - October 2024)
Friday, 1 May, 2026: Cobalt (42nd in The Soundscapes Series) (Recorded August 2025)

   

Friday, 5 June, 2026: Dark (43rd in The Soundscapes Series) (Recorded August 2025)
Wednesday, 10 June, 2026: Drift (Slow Songs 1996-2026 30 Years of Cloudland Blue Quartet) (19th in The Collections Series) (to be compiled May 2026)
Friday, 3 July, 2026: Across the Landscape (44th in The Soundscapes Series) (Recorded October 2025)
Friday, 7 August, 2026: Broken (19th in The Songs Series) (Recorded November 2025)

   

Friday, 4 September, 2026: Elevation (45th in The Soundscapes Series) (Recorded November 2025)
Friday, 2 October, 2026: Music for Guitar and String Quartet in 18 Movements (46th in The Soundscapes Series) (Recorded November 2025)
Friday, 6 November, 2026Swan Songs (6th in the GLAM! Covers Series) (Recorded December 2025)
Friday, 5 December, 2026: Disquietmusik X (10th in The Disquietmusik Frippertronics Guitar Series) (to be recorded November 2026)

(All artwork, releases and release dates subject to change)
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UPCOMING LIVE PERFORMANCES

            

Friday 6 March
Capital Models
Private Party Performance, Newliston Arms, Kirkliston

Performances include solo appearances, as Cloudland Blue Quartet, presenting sets of either songs or soundscapes, and group performances, with the current line up of David's 1980 new wave band, Capital Models 

At present there are no plans for his electronic improvisational quartet, Creek, to play live and nothing in the calendar for Cloudland Blue Quartet or Capital Models but a gig by vocal/electronic trio, Crazy Wisdom, is mooted in 2026...
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PODCASTS

Since 2014, David has produced almost 750 editions of the "Cloudland Blue Eclectic Selection", his weekly podcast on Mixcloud, reflecting his esoteric taste in music and encouraging listeners to broaden their musical horizons.  

Unfortunately, with only the most recent 10 able to be made available on the Mixcloud platform, each new podcast replaces the one from 10 weeks before.  

To obtain an MP3 download link for any currently unavailable Cloudland Blue Quartet Eclectic Selection, simply e-mail your request to crispycat@hotmail.com.  

Click on the pic to go to Mixcloud...

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DIARY UPDATES

Note that, in the diary, 150 days, across 6 periods in 4 of the 21 years are, currently, "picture only":-

2016: 15-17 October (3 Days)
2021: 8-21 May (14 Days)
2022: 18 April - 10 May & 6 July - 5 September (85 Days)
2023: 1 - 15 October & 18 October - 19 November (48 Days)

It is always the intention to update "picture only" days with the relevant text but doing so is, of course, subject to opportunity (and, indeed, memory!)

Tuesday, February 24, 2026

Not the fighting prince of Donegal but in the same area...

Playlist


Slept in...


Luna didn't, of course...











Finally, satisfied (for five minutes anyway - she threw this meal up - luckily not on either of the white rugs!)


Tuesday...


More fruitless searching for a solution to the laptop sound problem - a comment here yesterday re uninstalling Windows Updates - no joy...

A visit to Mary, post M&S for chocolate eclairs and a card and prosecco for Jane & Bob's anniversary tomorrow - which is also nephew Andy's 40th...

Said eclairs enjoyed...


Home for some soup, with Luna, of course...



I eschewed the football today (my right leg still healing from last week's stud-raking incident) and, while Anne PickleBalled, more fruitless sound solution searching - eventually, I gave up and watched episode 5 of "Fallout"...


The awful 40s/50s music is extremely tedious.  Should’ve stuck with the purpose written soundtrack work...

Fang popped by - noticed by an eagle-eyed Luna...


Dreamies on the front step for the wee man...


...while Luna left a souvenir...


Was only half way through "Fallout" when Anne returned - sandwiches to bolster the earlier soup intake, accompanied by the first 3 episodes of "How to Get to Heaven from Belfast"...

Set mainly in Donegal - which reminded me of the 1966 Disney film "The Fighting Prince of Donegal" - seen in my childhood one Saturday morning, I'm sure...


Having enjoyed some of Jon Anderson's latest this morning, my late afternoon listening today was also Yes-based - once again taking a closer listen to their last two LPs and then, some Arc of Life, a Yes off-shoot...

With the search for a sound solution re the laptop proving utterly fruitless, I reluctantly decided on this...

Possible New Listening Regime
Recent LPs: Samsung Galaxy J3 / Actual CDs
Older LPs: Hard Drives via Offline Laptop / Actual CDs

To help with the first of those, after some research, I found that the Samsung is a 2017 model and so can take a 256GB SD card - it currently holds a 128GB card - the larger card would mean I could have around 1,500 LPs on it at any time...

Said 256GB SD Card ordered - arriving tomorrow...

An unpictured salmon-based fish, chips and peas tea was followed by "Death in Paradise" (the sergeant's lovely purple and yellow outfit brought back memory from childhood of some artifact or other which was also purple and yellow but, for the life of me I cannot think what), another two episodes of "How to Get to Heaven from Belfast" doing the dishes and bed...

Today's CD Box was number 46...

Purcell to Rameau...


Despite those two featuring most prominently in the box, I chose some 20th Century music...


South African female composer, Priaulx Rainier...


Thought it was misfiled under P but...


...it was indeed correctly filed, between Rachmaninov and Rameau...

As with yesterday's Purcell, it remains unlistened to for the moment...

Highlight of the Day: How to Get to Heaven from Belfast...

Today's New Music: