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Welcome to Yew Tree Magic - The mysterious music of Martin Walker and the imaginative Artwork of Belinda Walker, based in magical Cornwall.

Martin Walker

Martin has been composing music for over 40 years, and played with various groups of musicians before concentrating on his own albums of instrumental music.

He uses keyboards and harp, plus kalimba, hammered dulcimer, guitar, zither, flutes, strings, and percussion, along with his collection of Chinese, Japanese, and Tibetan bells, gongs, and singing bowls, to create a rich tapestry of ever-evolving sound.

His music has been described in reviews as ‘a breath of fresh air’, and ‘like a slowly turning musical kaleidoscope’, and is peaceful, mysterious, and deeply spiritual. It straddles genres including Ambient, Chill-out, New Age, Contemporary Instrumental, Neo-classical, and Music for Meditation.

He practices Meditation, Reiki, and Tai Chi, writes for various music technology magazines, and contributes regular columns for Sound On Sound in the UK and Audio Technology in Australia, as well as many features and reviews.

Martin Walker interviewed by Sonik Matter

 

Belinda Walker

Belinda has drawn and painted for most of her life. Motivated by her love of colour, form, and texture, her work derives its inspiration from nature, flowers and trees, the sea, and woods.

Her pastels are inspired by the dramatic coastline of North Cornwall where she lives and works in her studio/gallery in the area near Tintagel, Boscastle, and Port Isaac.

She exhibits original watercolours, soft pastels, hand painted silk scarves and greeting cards.

She also creates individual artwork for Martin's CDs, evoking images from beneath the sea, sacred places, and the land around her - in essence she creates her own world of imagination and colour.

 

The Inspiration of Cornwall

Much of the inspiration for our work comes from North Cornwall, where we had been making annual holiday pilgrimages for some fifteen years. Five years ago we moved down here to live permanently, and are now able to experience Cornwall's moods and mysteries throughout the entire wheel of the year.

There's a surprising variety of landscape in North Cornwall, the most striking being the perilous and craggy coves once haunted by smugglers and pirates, and the gentler sandy beaches now enjoyed by surfers and swimmers. Yet along the coast the wind has sculpted the trees into strange artforms, and there are mysterious valleys filled with dwarf oak trees and rushing streams that lead to the sea over tumbled rocks and waterfalls. The most famous are Saint Nectan's Glen and Rocky Valley (where you'll find ancient carved labyrinth symbols, as well as offerings left by travellers and pilgrims).

A few miles inland lies the mysterious Bodmin Moor, a relatively small area just ten miles by ten miles that was once home to bronze age settlers over 4000 years ago, and where as well as the scattered farmsteads and inquisitive sheep and ponies you can find stone circles, solitary standing stones, ancient burial chambers, and clapper bridges, as well as Jamaica Inn, made famous in the book of the same name by Daphne du Maurier. There are even occasional sightings of the Beast Of Bodmin, believed to be some type of big cat.

Many ancient churches are to be found in North Cornwall too, sometimes hidden in dark valleys or surrounded by mossy banks. Inside them you can find carved mermaids, green men, gargoyles, and other mysterious creatures, while in the churchyards and in other isolated settings are tiny chapels and sacred wells. North Cornwall has long been associated with mystery and magic, with the famed castle at Tintagel tenuously clinging to its associations with King Arthur, plus the Museum of Witchcraft at Boscastle where you can study the world's largest collection of witchcraft-related artefacts.