At this point I dipped my toes back into the stream of David Sylvian's releases after a few years of abstinence. Three months almost to the day since we moved south of the river, I've finally got my hi-fi set up again in its intended location, and this is a good album with which to enjoy the extra sound quality that I don't get on my iMac.
This is vastly more austere than the previous albums of his that I have. His voice is all that holds it together, accompanied by his own glitches and some of Derek Bailey's angular guitar playing. (I think Sylvian has since released a full album of the material that Bailey recorded at his invitation — yes, here it is
Sylvian seems to be on a path, a bit like Scott Walker's, heading further and further into the margins. He's left Radio 1 and Radio 2 behind. Even 6 Music seems cautious about playing his recent material. But Radio 3's Late Junction has clutched him to its bosom. Where he perhaps differs from Scott Walker is that, for all his aural messing about, and despite the clearly unsettled tone of both songs and and singer, he remains very listenable (to my ears). I think this might be one of my favourite albums of his at the moment.
I bought it after I saw him play live at the Royal Festival Hall in 2003 and I found that performance quite captivating: also very sparse, but making every sound count (and he showed that the old acoustics of the hall could be made to work well if you used them right). He's playing the same venue in a couple of months time, but I was too late to get decent tickets, so I'll have to wait to see if any come up on Scarlet Mist. I got this CD the same day I went into Fopp to pick up the Albert Ayler boxed set. I'm kind of sad to see Fopp going out of business, but then my purchases there had fallen to less than 5% of what they were five years ago, so I guess I'm partly to blame.
 MusicBrainz entry for this album
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