Approaching Silence [Import]

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
David Sylvian has garnered a deserved reputation for brooding melancholy. On albums like Gone to Earth and last year's Dead Bees on a Cake, he seeks salvation while wallowing in the most ecstatic state of quiet repose. Approaching Silence is what you might imagine Sylvian hears in his darkest ruminations. Comprised of two very long soundscapes and one vignette, Sylvian orchestrates a dream world full of hidden shadows and elusive truths. "The Beekeeper's Apprentice," is a collaboration with Frank Perry who plays chimes, bells, and bowed gongs. Sylvian surrounds his pristine tones with sustained guitar textures and shimmering atmospheres. The title track, which clocks in at 48 minutes, is a sometimes threatening, occasionally claustrophobic landscape with King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp's undulating Frippertronic designs shifting through mysterious voices (also Fripp's) whispering at the borders of comprehension. Sylvian's soundscapes recall Steve Roach's recent forays into pure texture music. You can also hear the influence of Sylvian's earlier ambient collaborator, Holger Czukay, with his found sounds and voices. Originally made to accompany some multimedia installations, Approaching Silence doesn't create music as much as it articulates a space. --John Diliberto

Approaching Silence,David Sylvian,EMI Int'l,Experimental Rock,Pop,Prog-Rock/Art Rock,Rock,Rock/Pop

Tracks:

Beekeeper's Apprentice
Epiphany
Approaching Silence

Amazon.com

David Sylvian has garnered a deserved reputation for brooding melancholy. On albums like Gone to Earth and last year's Dead Bees on a Cake, he seeks salvation while wallowing in the most ecstatic state of quiet repose. Approaching Silence is what you might imagine Sylvian hears in his darkest ruminations. Comprised of two very long soundscapes and one vignette, Sylvian orchestrates a dream world full of hidden shadows and elusive truths. "The Beekeeper's Apprentice," is a collaboration with Frank Perry who plays chimes, bells, and bowed gongs. Sylvian surrounds his pristine tones with sustained guitar textures and shimmering atmospheres. The title track, which clocks in at 48 minutes, is a sometimes threatening, occasionally claustrophobic landscape with King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp's undulating Frippertronic designs shifting through mysterious voices (also Fripp's) whispering at the borders of comprehension. Sylvian's soundscapes recall Steve Roach's recent forays into pure texture music. You can also hear the influence of Sylvian's earlier ambient collaborator, Holger Czukay, with his found sounds and voices. Originally made to accompany some multimedia installations, Approaching Silence doesn't create music as much as it articulates a space. --John Diliberto

Customer Reviews:

Not Brian Eno.......2007-01-19

This CD is not as good as Brian Eno's Ambient Music for Airports, nor does it sound much like Eno's CD.
If you don't have Ambient Music for Airports already, buy it instead.

What's all the dissing about?.......2002-05-29

I happen to think this is a wonderful ambient album. I did get to listen to it before I bought it, and I don't have "Gone To Earth," which seems to be his masterpiece, to compare it to. It does everything a good ambient album should do. It soothes at low volumes, gently provokes at high ones, and spins up a parallel world to live in and explore while it plays. So what's all the dissing about?

ambient fans: Now hear this!.......2002-05-23

If you thought that David Sylvian's joint ventures with Holger Czukay (Plight & premonition and Flux & Mutability)were worth listening to, you will appreciate this. It gets way back into the deep cavities of your mind and is worth meditating on. Again, this is not for you if you are looking for pulse pounding techno, or lyric laden tracks, this is for accending the chakras. Be in the mood when you put it on, or this will put you into a meditative mood. enjoy.

One star is too much.......2001-08-25

Like nearly everything that Mr. Sylvian has recorded since 1988, this record is terrible. It really makes me wonder what it was that possesed him to create such great music while heading up Japan, and later his solo efforts of the 1980's.

It is as if he turned his back on everything, went into some dark diseased jungle, and became at one with the bottom dwellers.

A more dissapointing hero there is not. I will pray that someday he comes back to us.

Spooky but delicious.......2000-11-11

This is terrific ambient music, one of the best recent releases in this overworked genre that can readily lapse into 'New Age'. The title track is an epic, the pick of the Sylvian/Fripp collaborations, and has Sylvian's smoother atmospheres punctuated by Fripp's sonic clusters, full of fear and trembling. Devotees of these artists and of electronic music need to become acquainted with this challenging work.