When David Sylvian put out this and (I think) another album with Czukay, it became clear that he wasn't just piddling about with ambient music when he did the instrumental pieces on Gone to Earth; he was intent on staying the course. I saw him in late 1987 or early '88 at Sheffield City Hall with a band that featured Mark Isham, among others, and it was a very impressive show, not least for how self-effacing Sylvian's stage presence was (it took me about 15 minutes to work out which one was him!). The think I remember about the music that evening was that it was on the fringes of being ambient, but it wasn't quite. The difference between 'figure' and 'ground' in which instrumental voices were taking the lead was very indistinct, so the balance of the music always seemed to be shifting and up for negotiation.
But it was some years after its 1989 release that I finally got this album, and I think my copy is second hand. The first track is the better of the two. It has more interference from Czukay and others (there's half of Can playing on it). The second one is just rather anaemic, and certainly doesn't match what Sylvian was doing live at the time.
 MusicBrainz entry for this album
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