Sunday, March 6, 2011

David Sylvian and Holger Czukay - Plight and Premonition (1988, Venture)

In 1988, Japan singer / Ambient Pop icon David Sylvian and Krautrock legend / Can bassist Holger Czukay teamed to release Plight and Premonition. These two fifteen minute instrumental tracks explored atmospherics through improvisation. They recorded with everything at their disposal in the Can Studio of Koln, Germany: vibraphone, guitar and tape loops, organ, various keyboards, flute, harmonium, shortwave radio and found sound.

Over the next six months, Czukay dubbed and edited profusely, giving the tracks a filmic, almost visual quality. The icy chimes, flute lines and heavily layered drones conjured a ghostly horror film aesthetic that results in an engaging somnambulistic narrative.

This is an impressive controlled experiment that fits nicely alongside some of the earlier and spookier albums by Eno or Roach. It is is essentially two of my heroes fooling around in the studio inadvertently creating ominous and scary soundscapes. Very nice.

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