Wednesday, December 17, 2025

WELCOME TO CRISPYCAT RECORDINGS

If this is your first time here, rest assured you are not alone - in fact, you are amongst over 1.63 MILLION people who have visited Crispycat Recordings to date...
 
We issue the solo and collaborative work of musician, podcaster and abstract artist
DAVID REILLY

This is the Cloudland Blue Diary, with daily entries
from Sunday 5 March 2005 through to Tuesday 16 December 2025...
 (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
                         

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

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!)

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 85 further new releases having been issued in the last five years.

The current 16 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 have also released new recordings...

LATEST CLOUDLAND BLUE QUARTET RELEASE



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

For lovers of Frippertronics, "Disquietmusik IX" is the ninth in the annual series of Guitarscapes albums from Cloudland Blue Quartet, following on from the successes of "Disquietmusik" in 2017 through to "Disquietmusik VIII" in 2024, all eight of which remain available on Bandcamp.

These annual recordings of, frankly, weird and, occasionally, very annoying "music", have become the basis of much of what Cloudland Blue Quartet does over each following twelve month period, popping up, often re-pitched and/or re-tempo-ed, in the strangest of places, underpinning other new recordings or in his remixes of his own and of other artists' works.

"Disquietmusik" has come to represent a signature sound of CBQ's oeuvre.

Free to Stream/Name Your Price to Download, the 67 min LP is expanded in the download bundle by over 5hrs 20mins, making this the equivalent of a 6CD Box Set.

The 3 bonus albums, "Disquietmusik IX (Reversed)", "Disquietmusik IX (16 RPM)" and "Disquietmusik IX (16 RPM) (Reversed)", each give a different perspective on the pieces.

CBQ has said: "If I decided not to do anything else from now on, I'd still do these every year..."

CLOUDLAND BLUE QUARTET RELEASE SCHEDULE
     

Wednesday, 24 December, 2025: Twentytwentyfive: The Originals (17th in The Collections Series) (Compiled December 2025)
Wednesday, 31 December, 2025: Twentytwentyfive (Compilation of Rarities recorded throughout 2025) (18th in The Collections Series) (Compiled December 2025)
Friday, 2 January, 2026: Shostakovich (10th in The Composers Series) (Recorded March 2025)
Friday, 6 February, 2026Low Peach Winter Sun (40th in The Soundscapes Series) (Recorded July 2025)

   

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-October 2024, to be revised early 2026)
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)

UPCOMING LIVE PERFORMANCES
            

There are currently no performances planned

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...

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...

Tuesday, December 16, 2025

Good outcome after not watching...

Playlist


Up around 6:15...

Eschewing the machines initially...


...dishes done...

Then, ready for action but, to be fair, today, there was very little...


Writing this up...

...and listening again to "Swan Songs" and my song LP from June 2024 (recorded a year earlier), "Everything Ends"...


Breakfast at 9 and a Wordle...


Then, to rehearsing for Friday's rehearsal, where we will play 20 songs, quite a few of which we've not played for around 2 years and one which hasn't been played for over four years...


No singing, just guitaring...

Enjoyable...

A "Chicago PD" and then, at 12:45 Anne was of to play Pickleball so, I lunched alone and rewatched the episode of "Bones" which I fell asleep through last night...

On her return, Anne advised that, probably for the first time, the team of her and Lynn, when they played together today, won a game...

Result...

Me? I was listening to Beethoven's 8th Symphony...


A call from Malcolm - his long estranged son has been in contact out of the blue - Ruari recently graduated from the Leeds Conservatoire and has, in the past, been a world class wheelchair tennis player - Malcolm used to travel around Europe with him to tournaments...

Now, he's in a three piece metal/prog band called Janata - I checked out their demo - impressive...

To writing up the latest entries in the books of CDs I own...


Some stats re this year...


Over 500 CDs bought this year but almost 3,000 items downloaded...

So, over 3,500 new music items collected during the year so far, an average of around 10 a day...

This evening, it felt like a Sunday...

Some listening to my CDs of the week for 2025 (50 so far)...

Unpictured tasty salmon pie thing for tea...

The last of "Return to Paradise" and “Gone Fishing”, then, more listening...

And I'd forgotten Queens were playing in the Lower Leagues Cup thing tonight...

A magnificent 4-3 win at home to Dunfermline - who, a couple of weeks back put QoS out of the "real" cup...

4-3 and, they missed a penalty...


Good times...

They play Raith Rovers next...

An episode of "Bones", the Halloween one from Season 2,  rounded off the night...

Back where I started...


Highlight of the Day: Queens cup win...

Today's New Music:

Monday, December 15, 2025

Finding you don't already have something you've just bought, is always good...

Playlist


The usual...





Diary writing and music downloading and listening pre breakfast, including amending "Swan Songs" to 8 songs plus 5 bonuses, on the Bandcamp upload...

A nice selection of ECM jazz albums added to the library...

Breakfast...


...including a rare Wordle from Mr Quartet, the Exec Producer, who Wordles every day, having taken 6 goes...

I got the same result...


Another week begins and we are half way through December...


The EP was off uptown for some present buying so I decided to tag along...

Out and down the hill and a bus into town, accompanied by a very annoying phone on loudspeaker scenario from a complete dick up the back...


An hour after the pic above, having split up on Princes St, I was approaching Canonmills...


Nothing found and a bus then up to Morningside, where I met up with the EP...

Toasties and coffee at Pop for lunch..


...followed by a long walk from there all the way back to Shandwick Place for the bus home...

Of course chazzas were explored...

Three purchases made - as was a note of this place offering a very good deal for lunch...


In May 1980, Capital Models recorded the "Breaking Silence " EP here...


...at Barclay Towers - the Cupula at the top was the control room...





Bus to the bottom of the hill and a walk up and home for ripping and listening...



This for £1, although I was sure I already had it...


But, no...

Result!!


People on my timelines are always banging on about Alan Parsons...

This for £2...


My opinion that, just because someone pressed “record” on a tape machine while Pink Floyd were recording “Dark Side of the Moon”, doesn’t mean they might make good music, was, upon listening, proven to be correct...

And, although everybody knows, there's no place for vocals in jazz, took a chance on this from 1958...

It has to be said that the guitar playing is stellar...


An instrumental version would be good...

A "Chicago PD" before Anne headed for Pilates and I set about recording and uploading the podcast...



Done, dusted...

On Anne's return, baked potatoes and 120 scored on "University Challenge"..


Listening to the podcast while Anne watched "Corrie"...

Then, two episodes of "Bones" before bed...

Highlight of the Day: Not already having "Blaxploitation"...

Today's New Music: