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."
A good overview of David Sylvian's instrumental work.
Michael Stack | North Chelmsford, MA USA | 08/14/2007
(4 out of 5 stars)
"When David Sylvian's twenty year relationship with Virgin Records came to an end, he delivered two compilations to them drawn from his catalog, a vocal compilation ("Everything and Nothing") and an instrumental one ("Camphor"). Both were initially released as limited editions with bonus discs and eventually saw wider release without the bonus disc. Together, they provide a fantastic overview of the bulk of Sylvian's work, and while some of his decisions (particularly with respect to the Japan material) may irk some of his longtime fans, the value of these sets-- both to the unitiated and old hands, is difficult to estimate.
"Camphor" is the instrumental piece, a single disc compilation of mostly instrumental works drawn from Sylvian's solo catalog and work with Rain Tree Crow. Along the way, there's a pair of songs not before commercially available (both were released on a CD Sylvian sold on tour the year before this came out) and three remixes.
The CD paints a fairly interesting picture of Sylvian as an instrumentalist-- right away it's pretty clear this eschews the usual ambient atmosphere with "All of My Mother's Names", a feature for guitarist Marc Ribot from 1999's "Dead Bees on a Cake". Ribot coughs up a churning freak of a solo that defies expectation and predictability and still, nearly 8 years after I first heard it, I'm in awe of the piece. But it's not ambient, and while the album will drift in an out of ambient sounds (i.e. "Answered Prayers", "A Brief Conversation Ending in Divorce"), the real beauty of the record is the breadth of diversity of the work on it, be it the rolling funk of Rain Tree Crow's "Big Wheels in Shanty Town", the traditional ambient sounds of "The Healing Place" or the noise excursion of the title track.
Of the new songs, "The Song Which Gives the Key to Perfection" is a Hindu chant gently delivered by Sylvian (and his only real vocal on the record) over a mild drone and electric piano. It works out to be a lovely piece, admittedly perhaps not everyone's (including my) cup of tea, but it's a nice enough listen. "Camphor" mixes a traditional ambient sound with what processed effects and noise and what sounds like someone spinning a radio dial. It's quite an intriguing performance, although admittedly some of its strength is in wrapping up in 3 minutes-- had it gone on long, I could see it getting annoying quickly.
The remixes are interesting-- two of them are remixes of vocal pieces-- "Wave" from "Gone to Earth" essentially ends up being presented as throbbing synths and Robert Fripp's superlative guitar playing (his performance on "Wave" is some of his best) and works nicely on its own. "Mother and Child" is equally intriguing, replacing Sylvian's vocal with a superb trumpet performance by Nils Petter Molvaer but otherwise largely leaving the original alone, although it seems Ryuichi Sakamoto's Cecil Taylor-esque soloing comes a bit more to the fore. Again, it works fantastically and proves quite effecting and powerful. The third piece is a slice out of one of his works with Holgar Czukay-- "Plight" gets edited from over 15 minutes to under 3-- the little pieces works ok, but it's more like an interlude than anything else.
Like any compilation, I could certainly argue the track listing (the inclusion of "Praise", a chant by Sylvian's guru and the notable lack of the stunning "Gone to Earth" piece, "Camp Fire: Coyote Country", which flattens me everything I hear it), but all in all, like its counterpart "Everything and Nothing" served for Sylvian's vocal work, "Camphor" is a fine compilation of his instrumental work. The limited edition bonux disc contains remixes of three pieces from the Sylvian/Czukay albums-- "Plight" and "Premonition" both get full treatments whereas "Mutability" gets trimmed down to just over 5 minutes. I listened to "Plight and Premonition" recently and quite honestly didn't note dramatic differences with the remix,but "Mutability", originally clocking in at over 20 minutes, was a piece I could never deal with because it couldn't sustain my interest, benefits from conciseness. Still, the bonus disc is likely only of interest to diehards and it's probably not necessary to seek it out.
Regardless of edition, for those new to Sylvian's work, "Camphor" is a fine introduction to his instrumental side during his tenure with Virgin. For older fans, this set may not be as valuable, but the music contained within is superb."
Perfection on at least one track
Stephen Silberman | SF, CA USA | 08/07/2003
(4 out of 5 stars)
""Everything and Nothing" is a much better Sylvian compilation, but "The Song that Gives the Key to Perfection" is nearly worth the price of this set alone. It's a stunning, haunting, spacious setting of a Hindu sacred text, with bare, exquisite accompaniment. I listened to this track after the death of a good friend and gained much solace from it. It's as sincere and as profound a track as you will find in modern music."
