Clay Pipe Schallplatten & CDs

Review: Vic Mars spent many years in Nagoya, Japan, and it shows in the delicate beauty of his compositions. Fusing understated elegance with the lilting folk traditions of the British Isles, his music is equal parts pastoral and ethereal. Following plenty of previous appearances on boutique London label Clay Pipe, he returns with "Inner Roads & Outer Paths", a thoroughly calming sojourn through fingerpicked guitar refrains, plaintive piano and plenty more instrumentation besides. There's a subtle tint of processing that lends an otherworldly edge to the ambience Mars is imparting - a truly soul-nourishing departure from the intensity of the modern age.