Approaching Silence

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David Sylvian releases, it would seem, are somewhat like London buses, in that you wait years for one and then a whole bunch arrive. (Relatively) hot on the heels of the woefully-underrated Dead Bees on a Cake, David's first "proper" solo album in ten years, comes this collection of his music for art installations. The long piece "Beekeeper's Apprentice" and the fragment "Epiphany" were originally composed for an installation mounted in 1990 at the Temporary Museum in Shinagawa, Japan, the visual aspect of which was created by David's long-time colleague Russell Mills. The pieces have previously only been available as the CD component of the long-deleted, strictly limited edition Ember Glance box set. They feature Sylvian on a variety of instruments - guitars, shortwave radio, synthesizers - and veteran improv percussionist Frank Perry on sundry bells and gongs. The third piece here, "Approaching Silence" was recorded by Sylvian and King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp in 1994 for an installation in a Buddhist temple in Shinjuku, Tokyo. Holger Czukay, with whom Sylvian worked on two of the best albums he ever made - Flux & Mutability and Plight & Premonition - once described Sylvian as one of the greatest living ambient composers. That's high praise, coming from Czukay, and praise borne out here. Ember Glance has long been my own personal favourite Sylvian album. The two pieces have an extraordinary, richly-detailed depth, at once lovely and disturbing. It's great that they finally see a wider release. "Redemption" sits along side them very well indeed, its guitar loops and sampled voices creating almost a relief after the richness of the Ember Glance material... although describing nearly 40 minutes of darkly minimal soundscaping as any kind of "relief" might be pushing it! Really, this is fabulous stuff, and further proof that Sylvian, like Scott Walker and Brian Eno before him, has made the transition from the pop mainstream to the musical fringe with complete creative success.