Simonp wrote:Interesting thoughts. Having heard it only once, what do you think about the music itself? Woould you like to hear more like this from Sylvian?
More like this? Definitely Simon. I have always greatly enjoyed the sound of a string quartet, plus the more creative and unconventional, then the better. I'm estimating that I have listened to it about a couple dozen times so far and in my opinion, the piece sounds as if it were a slight continuation of the challenges posed to Sylvian by Derek Bailey...yet this time the music was written down and Sylvian is being pushed by the sound of violins, viola and cello rather than an elder ragtime and swing guitarist who chose to eschew any typical sort of structure in favor of expressing himself with the most random manner of improv possible.
I do believe that this musical concept could point to a promising future if Sylvian should choose to follow further within the archaic experimentalism of contemporary orchestral music.
And I can easily assume that we will actually hear at least a bit more music in this vein. I've been informed that Dai Fujikura has kept mentioning on some blog that he is either composing and recording more musical ideas with members of the International Contemporary Ensemble with the plan of submitting the material to Sylvian, or is presently remixing and rerecording selected tracks off of Manafon. I'm not sure why they would feel the need to redo any of Manafon (the alterations to Random Acts didn't really impress me all that much, and actually suffered in my opinion due to how it covered up the strikingly beautiful minimalism contributed by pianist John Tilbury).
But it appears as though we will indeed hear a mixed bag of fresh material and reworked material, as mentioned above by Haldeman G.