Mutability (A New Beginning Is In The Offing) Detail
Premonition (Giant Empty Iron Vessel)
Limited Edtion 2002 Compilation of Instrumental Tracks from the Former Lead Singer of Japan and Rain Tree Crow. 'wave', 'plight' and 'upon this Earth' were all Newly Remixed by Sylvian. 'red Earth', 'new Moon at Deer Wallo... more »w' and 'big Wheels in Shanty Town' were Originally Recorded by Rain Tree Crow. The Bonus Disc Includes Three Tracks Originally by Sylvian and Holger Czukay, Newly Remixed by Sylvian.« less
Limited Edtion 2002 Compilation of Instrumental Tracks from the Former Lead Singer of Japan and Rain Tree Crow. 'wave', 'plight' and 'upon this Earth' were all Newly Remixed by Sylvian. 'red Earth', 'new Moon at Deer Wallow' and 'big Wheels in Shanty Town' were Originally Recorded by Rain Tree Crow. The Bonus Disc Includes Three Tracks Originally by Sylvian and Holger Czukay, Newly Remixed by Sylvian.
CD Reviews
I'm really sorry about this, david...
M. Derby | Portland, OR USA | 06/19/2002
(2 out of 5 stars)
"...but you let me down! And it isn't that I'm not a fan of ambient music--I am (I have about 500 ambient CDs, out of a collection of 1500 CDs total). But Mr. Sylvian, your ambient output is spotty. Flux and Mutability is great. Alchemy: An Index of Possibilities (hard to find, fans, I know) is very good. The instrumental tracks on Gone to Earth are wonderful. (So much so, I've thought about paying some obscene price on eBay for the Japanese import double CD of Gone to Earth which includes all the tracks as the original LP.)But Plight and Premonition is so-so. Side B of Brilliant Trees was kinda boring, as was all of Approaching Silence. (I wasn't able to afford Ember Glance. Sorry.)As for Camphor...the new tracks are good. But they're too lively to fit well on an "ambient" album. They should have been on an album by themselves. With the rest of the material here--mostly those same Gone to Earth tracks (some reworked), and also a few Rain Tree Crow tracks--the new stuff doesn't sound right. It's all jumbled together; it doesn't flow.At least on disc one, the reworkings are interesting. But the bonus disc--oh, David, why didn't you leave Plight and Premonition alone? They're not too badly mangled (and Mutability, also here, may be untouched) but these funny little whooshes and blips are NOT improvements.Ambient compilations just don't work. (The Ambient Expanse, a Steve Roach-directed collaboration with several separate artists, is the only counterexample which comes to mind.) But if you had to give us a sort of new stuff/old stuff jumble, why oh WHY couldn't you have given us the Gone to Earth tracks that aren't available on any but the Japanese CDs? (The titles are, for the curious: "Silver Moon Over Sleeping Steeples", "Camp Fire: Coyote Country", "A Bird of Prey Vanishes into a Bright Blue Cloudless Sky", and "Sunlight Seen through Towering Trees".)Everything and Nothing was a great compilation. It worked. Camphor, sadly, does not."
I think I've been here before...
Matthew Davidson | Cambridge MA | 08/20/2002
(2 out of 5 stars)
"Aaaaarrrrrrggghh. I can't believe I blithely purchase everything with David Sylvian's name on it. With the exception of a remix or two (Wave is nice, but did I really need another version?) and 'The Song Which Gives The Key To Perfection', I already have everything from other sources. Conceptually, it doesn't even work as a collection because there is no flow or consistent tone to the pieces. Ambient here, vocal there, experimental after that. Bleah.In the same purchase from Amazon, I also ordered JBK 'Playing in a Room With People', so it was kind of a double whammy for me. Now I have 'Big Wheels In Shanty Town' on three CDs. If JBK and Sylvian love this piece so much to release it three times, perhaps this is proof that they should record another album together.After Everything and Nothing, Approaching Silence, and now Camphor, I'm ready for some new music."
Not much bang for the buck
Rese Jamora-Garceau | 11/03/2002
(2 out of 5 stars)
"I should have heeded the reviews instead of buying every compilation Sylvian puts out. Guess I liked Everything and Nothing so much I thought this would feature a good mix of old and new instrumentals, plus a lot of remixes. Boy, was I wrong. There's very little new here, aside from slightly reworked, prettier versions of Wave, a more accessibly jazzy Mother and Child, and The Healing Place. And that's it, out of 13 songs! Oh, yes, there's a new Indian praise hymn The Song Which Gives the Key to Perfection, and Camphor, which Sylvian used as the introductory music to his live concert tour this year. But if you bought the souvenir tour CD, you already own those tracks.Not to mention the bonus CD features Plight and Premonition, not one of my favorites among Sylvian's admittedly spotty instrumental work.If you're a diehard Sylvian fan like I am, you'll find all the rest of the songs from this compilation on Rain Tree Crow, Dead Bees On a Cake, Plight and Premonition, Flux and Mutability, and the instrumental side of Gone to Earth.All I can say is, this is Sylvian's most disappointing output to date. Heed my advice: save your money for Everything and Nothing or the real album to come-- something I should have done."
Messing with the goods
August Sanders | Ann Arbor, MI United States | 07/11/2002
(3 out of 5 stars)
"An ok but not stellar introduction to Sylvian's instrumental work. Another reviewer tore this as not succeeding as an ambient collection -- since several of the tracks are far from "ambient" this is not surprising. Perhaps, if Sylvian had stuck to a purely ambient retrospective this would have worked better. As it is, he has co-joined the squawk of his Miles-as-Pimp-era composition All My Mother's Names with serene and often beautifully woven pieces like Answered Prayers and Plight, and thrown in some of his arty but annoying stuff for good measure (Camphor, A Brief Conversation). The instrumental takes on songs are fine, and again I'm reminded what a phenomenal album the Rain Tree Crow project produced, but somehow it doesn't all hang together and there isn't much justification for material like The Song Which Gives the Key to Perfection when so much other material is around. Interested listeners would be better directed to some of the source material: Flux and Mutability is readily available as a budget item, the second half of Gone To Earth is hard to find and expensive but contains the best encapsulation of Eno's music for films next to the master himself, and the Rain Tree Crow album is superb."
Mushrooms on the Moon
Mars Velvet | Green Tree, Blue Earth...Deep Space | 06/20/2002
(4 out of 5 stars)
"I am really a devout Sylvian listener. Although I prefer his vocal works I decided to buy this collection of instrumentals. "All of My Mother's Names" has been reworked here. A little different from the version on DEAD BEES but I like this one really.A different version of "Wave" is also a bit different but sounds really good."Mother and Child" originally a vocal from SECRETS is worked beautifully as a jazz instrumental. Gorgeous! My favorite piece on the CD!A 2 miniute segment of "Plight" appears, my first real intro to Sylvian's instrumental pieces. Ghostly and sparce with lots of distant vocal samples via Holger Czukay's dictaphone.Really I like much of this except one piece was dissapointing. Now I like atonal stuff like Usserchevsky and Cage, stuffed pianos and live sheep on stage kinda stuff. But "Camphor", the title piece, goes along nice enough but has this irritating dissonence that sounds like chainsaw ripping up a speaker! No lie...do not listen with headphones. If aliens came and erased this one track then the CD would be a perfect treat. The oddest thing here though is the artwork! What is this? Mushrooms on the moon? Kinda cool though. But Sylvian and avant-guarde kinda go together well. Buy, enjoy.My recomendations:
CAMPHOR
SECRETS OF THE BEEHIVE
DEAD BEES
ALCHEMYELECTRONIC MODULATIONS:VINTAGE VOLTS
a collection of avant-guarde atonal works by Cage and Usserchevsky and the like. But no live sheep..."
Track Listings (14) - Disc #1