Stumbled across this in Forever Changes on Ecclesall Road in Sheffield (apparently the shop, which had moved round the corner last year, has now closed completely) early in 2001. I didn't know the album existed, which I felt I should have done since I know John and half-knew the bloke who ran the label it's on, Liquid — he had my old office in the Workstation.
Most of the tracks are John's commissions for dance and performance works, many of which I saw. There are four pieces from Forced Entertainment's Emmanuelle Enchanted (which I missed the first time round in 1992, but was fortunate to see in a one-off revival a decade or so later). One of them The Night the Rain Stopped sounds very like the album Eno released in 1992, and specifically his track What Actually Happened?. I'm not alleging one of them copied the other; just saying they sound very similar.
My favourite tracks are those for Third Angel's Senseless, which I saw at the Mappin Art Gallery, and A Few Thoughts About Time. They both have a sense of space that is reminiscent of Harold Budd at his best, or perhaps the Deep Listening Band.
For an album that's a patchwork of material from disparate sources, it works very coherently as an album, with just the right amount of variety of moods and tempos.
John is a quiet man. For years I wondered if he was suspicious of me. And he may be; though one New Year, in the early hours of the morning, we had a very warm conversation about music (Mogwai and Godspeed! You Black Emperor, I seem to recall) in Claire and Andy's kitchen, and I wondered if it was just that we're both shy. I last saw him a year ago tomorrow at a Max Richter and Haushka gig.
| Discogs entry for this album |
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