Friday, February 13, 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

This section is the
Cloudland Blue Diary
with daily entries from 
Sunday 5 March 2005
to
Thursday 12 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
                         

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...

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"

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)

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...


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!)

Thursday, February 12, 2026

A day, mostly, of Fallout and Younger...

Playlist


Various things have happened on my system over the last few days which are extremely annoying, frustrating and, of which, the cause is proving difficult to find. Hopeful of making my way through though. First world problems, as they say...

I can't listen to anything from online as it jitters.  I do enjoy listening to CDs of course and the occasional record (but usually end up switching to the CD version due to surface noise)...

So, can't surf (or work) unless, no hard drive/online music...

And I can't listen to hard drive music unless no internet...

Something changed 3 days ago and I'm damned if I can find out what it was and put it right...

The search continues...

Anyway, scenes...






I was all set to head to Glasgow for the day as Anne was out on the ran dan - but, the weather put me off, so I stayed in all day...

Soundtracked by CDs, I finally got this here diary back up to date this morning...

A bit behind with the listening to the CD a day project...

So, not listened to today's choice quite yet...

Box 33 is from Mendelssohn to Messiaen...


Chose this from Belgian Wim Mertens, most well known, probably, for his soundtracks to the later films of Peter Greenaway (taking over, kind of, from Michael Nyman)...


I first had this as a double LP, although, like recent re-acquisition "Dutch Man Dub" by The Revolutionaries, I can't find it on any of my lists or diaries from back in the day...


Might be because my LP list only goes to 1983 and this wasn't issued until 1984 - so there's that wee gap in information that year - I have no diary for 1984 so can't really be sure what I bought then...

No dairy for 1984?  So lazy!


Anyway, tasty, reasonably minimalist stuff as far as I recall - I will know more when I listen to it again "soon"...

At 11:30, took Anne into town for a birthday lunch treat from sister-in-law Jane - the two of them enjoying a long leisurely seven course lunch at Six by Nico, with champagne and wine, followed by even more wine at nearby Ryan's Bar...

The menu...


The dishes...








I had look round a couple of shops but purchased nothing except bread and biscuits, the latter for a visit from Creeker Stu tomorrow morning...

Home around 2 and, from then until almost 7 and Anne's return, I watched "Fallout" season one...




My own, not quite so swanky, sustenance comprised Quorn ham slices on bread - lovely bread it must be said tho, a LIDL Rye Bloomer...

And Fang popped by for some Dreamies - a moment's respite from the sleet outside for the wee man...


...before he headed off to who knows where, hopefully home to a warm spot in his own house...


From Anne's return until close of play, breaking into the Caramel Logs half way through...


...we watched possibly far too many episodes of "Younger", season 5...

Off to bed at gone midnight, with the next CBQ LP in the cans...

Highlight of the Day: Bread and bingeing...

Today's New Music: