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This album follows on from 'Cave Printmaker'.
Again lots of percussion, but recorded to exploit a lot of decay and electronic manipulation of the sounds.
Here is a review of the album in 'International Times'.

The Secret Life of Stones, Walt Shaw (Discus Music CD)

Let me come clean straight away: I am no fan of drummers. In fact I detest most drummers and their drumkits. I usually say the exception is John Marshall’s ‘Four Gongs Two Drums’ on Bundles, which is a masterpiece of restraint, although there are odd moments in many band’s repertoires where I think ‘yes’. (Guy Evans’ double drums on Van der Graaf Generators ‘Gog’ springs to mind.) In the main though I prefer percussion, and well-programmed drum machines. Rotatoms were a gift from god in my humble opinion.

So you can perhaps see why I surprised myself liking Walt Shaw’s new album, although to be fair he does state that ‘At the heart of the work is percussion, mediated using electronics’. So, although there are some drumskins involved this abstract music is mostly reliant on what Shaw calls ‘sources of vibration’, which includes stones in cans, the decay of gongs, and a whole load of other things:

stretched wires, springs, bent metal, various saw blades, circular and fret, wood, glass, metal plates, tuning forks, marbles, and naturally some drums, found objects, voice, cymbals, singing bowls, metal and wooden tongue drums

There are mostly recorded with contact microphones and then treated with effects, to produce drones and textures, which sometimes lay beneath the clanking, twittering, echoing and gently chuntering foreground sounds.

It’s like a weird kind of play, characters moving across the stage, in front of an abstract scenic backdrop, to interract, argue, nod to each other and move on. On ‘Snowquilt’ a voice quietly declaims amongst and through the sounds. The titles are as impressionistic as the music, which hovers between ambient and free jazz improvisation. Although there is a lyrical freedom at work here it is one executed with care, by someone paying attention to the mistakes, accidents and possibilities of sound.

I feel privileged to be shown this secret life.

This was released on Discus in September 2025. It's a departure from my first solo album, being integrated percussion and electronics.
It has had some excellent reviews.

Review in International Times Walt Shaw began his musical life back in the 1960s as a drummer playing rock and jazz. As time went on, his musical horizons broadened and he began to incorporate home-made instruments, found objects and electronics into his music-making. He has performed widely with other improvising musicians, in both the UK and Europe. He is also a visual artist. I say ‘also’, but these two sides to his creativity very much blur together: his visual art tends to look like his music and his music, to sound like his art. I know this is a subjective assessment on my part, but I think if you check out his artwork as well as listen to the album, you’ll probably get what I mean. It’s a connection Shaw acknowledges: as he puts it in the album notes, ‘I view my visual and sound creativity as very similar, originating from the same element of consciousness.’

Cave Printmaker is a conscious development of this connection. There are fifteen tracks in all and Shaw conceived them as ‘soundscapes … as if some of my paintings were converted to sound, rather like synaesthesia.’ The results are fluid and lyrical – not adjectives you often use in relation to artists whose work centres around percussion. Of course it’s subjective, but listening, I constantly found myself wanting to see what I was listening to, as the music is indeed ‘visual’ in a way that is hard to describe. The fact that Shaw comes at the music from two less-than-conventional directions – a visual artist’s sense of form and an expanded sound palette – makes for music that’s uncannily original and which could find an audience well beyond the confines of genre. It’s a very special album.

In April "Orchestra of The Upper Atmosphere" will be recording "Theta Seven", their last of seven albums. They are all on the Discus website. As usual I will be playing percussion and some electronics.

https://discus-music.org

The musician Jim Tetlow and I have just released our third album, "Towards Momentum" on Martin Archer's wonderful and exciting Discus label:

https://discus-music.org/cp-catalogue/9012dl-walt-shaw-jim-tetlow-towards-momentum/

The USA based Wayo 104.3FM show "Other Aspects" recently played tracks from the album, which can be heard on the show here:

https://www.mixcloud.com/wayoradio/other-aspects-3925/

Our previous albums, "The Cartography of Dreams" and "Inner Skull Trail" received good reviews and plays on various radio channels internationally.

You can check Jim's site out here:

https://www.jimtetlow.com/themusic

In the studio the last three months I have been working on two major series. Firstly the "Zone" series, which although abstract, references the disturbing military confrontations from despotic regimes in the world today.

Secondly, the "Parallel World" series which allows the world within my head to play out across paper in mainly other worldly landscapes and quasi biological structures.

You can see both of these series on the site here:

https://waltshaw.com/series

I am delighted with this new website constructed by Ben Shaw.

It not only showcases my work brilliantly, but also has acted as a spur with all my creative activity.

Feel free to contact me if you have any feedback or suggestions regarding the website, at contact@waltshaw.com

If you notice any technical issues or bugs, you can also report them to info@benshaw.dev

In the last few weeks, the inspirational ceramicist/sculptor Sarah Villeneau completed her solo show at the Danum Gallery in Doncaster.

The exhibition's closure was marked by a special performance from the experimental 'anti-choir' Juxtavoices, of which I am a member. We created an immersive experience by interacting with the pieces through sound, forming a unique dialogue between ceramic forms and vocal expressions.

I had the privilege of creating seven graphic scores to accompany seven of Sarah's pieces. This collaboration fulfilled a long-term aspiration of mine: integrating malleable soundscapes with visual art. The intersection of these two art forms created a compelling multi-sensory experience for the audience.

You can explore more of Sarah's remarkable work on her website: https://sarahvilleneau.weebly.com

Martin Archer (top musician, and owner of Discus Music) and I have had a number of glowing reviews for our recent duo album, "Biyartabiyu". It has been played on several radio stations in the USA as well as in the UK.

As well as being a rich experience collaborating musically with Martin, I did a number of drawings relating to each piece, to be found with the album.

You can find the album here on the Discus Music website.

Also, please check out this fantastic review from All About Jazz.