release date: May 25, 1987
format: vinyl (clear vinyl - RALP 0043) / digital (1988)
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,62]
producer: Steve Kilbey [recorded by]
label: Ryko Analogue - nationality: Australia
Track highlights: 1. "The Dawn Poems" - 5. "A Loveletter From Sydney" - 6. "Carthage" - 7. "City of Women" - 9. "...The Empire Mourns Her Sun Without Tears" - 10. "Cornucopia" - 11. "Memory (c)" - 12. "Aphrodite" - 16. "Atlantis"
2nd solo album by Steve Kilbey released on Ryko Analogue, a Rykodisc-sublabel used for cassette- and vinylreleases. The vinyl issue is an American import on clear vinyl. As on his solo-debut Unearthed from '86, Kilbey is in charge of most things on this one, thus being credited: played by, recorded by, mixed by, as well as composer and as responsibe for (printed) material. Only a few other people are mentioned as contributors to this album: some who have assisted in creating artwork, some who have helped with mixing and mastering, and also his Swedish girlfriend at the time, Karin Jansson, who is co-writer on track #9. The album is published as a 'musical companion' to his homonymous lyric and essay publication on the modern life of mysticism. The back of the book cover contains the following description of the music: "An album of music which could be seen instrumental to the reading of the book..."
This was the first album I purchased of Kilbey's solo releases, which is probably quite fortunate, because if it had been the other way around and I had heard his actual solo debut first, I might not have considered buying this one, which consists entirely of instrumental tracks. It's quite a different collection of tracks by being far more experimental and more complex. The music is predominantly electronic in the sense that Kilbey makes use of synthesizers, drum programming, loops and tapes, and it's a release that is quite far from what he has released with the band The Church.
Some tracks (#7, #9, #10, #13, and #20) sound much like music inspired by Ryuichi Sakamoto and / or David Sylvian with a constant underlying presence of ambience. Another striking feature of the album is that it consists of twenty tracks and yet 'only' has a total running time of under 48 minutes. Three compositions are shorter than one minute, ten tracks have a duration of one to three minutes, five are between three and four minutes and two tracks are longer than four minutes.
Although, I do believe I acquired his solo debut a few weeks after this, I've always found this one that bit more entriguing. Yes, it's quite experimental, but at the same time it's also rich in ideas, and so it still holds up as quite a timeless work.
