release date: Sep. 13, 1986
format: digital (2 lp)
[album rate: 3 / 5] [3,14]
producer: Steve Nye, David Sylvian
label: Virgin Records - nationality: England, UK
Track highlights: disc 1) 1. "Taking the Veil" - 2. "Laughter and Forgetting" - 3. "Before the Bullfight" - 4. "Gone to Earth" - 6. "River Man" - 7. "Silver Moon" - - disc 2) 3. "Where the Railroad Meets the Sea" - 5. "Silver Moon Over Sleeping Steeples" - 10. "Upon This Earth"
3rd studio album by David Sylvian originally released as a double vinyl lp. The album is a mix of styles. On the first cd the music appears as close to that of his music on Brilliant Trees (1984) and to that of the successive album Secrets of the Beehive (1987). It's a nice blend of warm jazz combined with Sylvian's ethereal singing voice and ambient keyboards. The second disc is instrumental only and imho lowers the general impression of the whole. It's more in the spirit of his experimental ep Alchemy: An Index of Possibilities (1985) but also more ambient, which is something I feel that Sylvian sometimes do too much of. Both Steve Jansen and Richard Barbieri of Japan feature on the album as do Robert Fripp, Kenny Wheeler, and Bill Nelson.
[ allmusic.com 3,5 / 5 stars ]
