Died In The Wool - new album

[Simonp]

The soundclips sounds BEAUTIFUL...very excited about this release. The cover is hellish though

[Blemished]

The sites back up...sounding very good indeed

[Blemished]

...although I wish Bang & Honore hadn't taken the guitar out of 'A Certain Slant Of Light'...it loses a lot of its emotional power without it (as far as you can tell from an MP3 clip anyhow).

[Six One Cynic]

Al this does is reaffirm my love and admiration for DS' new work, this new sound he has created and made into a real thing, it's going to be a long wait until the 31'st of May.

[Dual]

Looking forward to this, should be interesting to see what they have done with the Manafon stuff.

Quick question, does anyone think Sylvian will tour anything from this release? I remember reading an interview with him saying he was interested in playing the the Manafon material live but it would require quite a bit of money and effort to get the setup he wanted.

[Stoobie]

have to say i'm not really a fan of manafon, but love what i have heard so far !

the covers okay too, yip ! think i'm looking forward to May !

Stoobie

[inkinthewell]

Can't say I dislike the cover art. The ram picture is beautiful (a holy sacrifice? Abraham and Isaac?), and DS looks very angelic (quite in contrast with the evil Sleepwalkers pics). And love the woody background, but that seems to be a George Bolster trademark. http://www.georgebolster.net
The sculpture named All Good Rappers Go To Hell is great.

[inkinthewell]

All Good Rappers Go To Jersey.

Jersey, indeed!

[untitled]

The Last Days of December is my favourite from the first listen. As for the cover....I am wondering if David is doing some kind of reverse Dorian Gray. Ageing (gracefully) in real life...whilst becoming younger and younger in drawings

[Simonp]

Wonder if he'll announce some live dates now...perhaps Bang, Honore and the ICE lot on stage with him?

[Haldeman Gracie]

Nice cover and great tracklisting - it seems to clear the decks a bit so he can get right on to some new business after this. haven't listened to the samples, would rather wait.

It's also coming within a week of an album of Kate Bush variations too (20 years after the fact in her case). May's looking like an exciting month.

[digimarsh]

finally got to listen to the samples, very promising,

[qdes]

I am loving what I hear. Come on May!

[baht habit]

[/quote]I also wanted to share this, I've been informed that Sylvian had decided to edit the final version of When We Return You Won't Recognise Us from 50 minutes down to 20 minutes for this release.[/quote]

i wonder why he has so drastically cut the run time on this track, being that a whole additional disk has been included to accomodate it's prescence, there is not a time issue is there.[/quote]


I also was a bit confounded as to why the piece came to become so heavily edited, so I inquired into what exactly was going on with all of this and I've received what seems to be a fairly valid explanation.
Certain portions of the original piece were created for the express purpose of utilizing the impressive scope of 5.1 Surround Sound, which was available for use at the installation. As best I was informed, I can tell you that the bulk of these parts of the original work were ambient sections of considerable length written and recorded by Steve D'Agostino, who handled all the mastering of the 5.1 himself.
Yet during the process of creating a brand new stereo mix in order for an official release, Sylvian felt as though these specific sections did not translate as well in comparison to the rest of the piece and actually took away from the work's overall continuity. So basically they were chosen to be excised in order to keep the focus on the ensemble's performance.
The upside is that Sylvian then added more improvised material from earlier takes by Fujikura and the members of the International Contemporary Ensemble not originally included within the piece. So supposedly what we will be hearing when we listen to this track are the original contributions of Fujikura and ICE ---plus additional parts from them which were not on the original...the full contributions from Butcher, Prevost and Muller...and contributions added later on by both Henriksen and Nakamura which were also not on the original.
The piece essentially kept evolving even after it was first debuted for the installation. And even though it is now being presented at a shorter duration, Sylvian views the final product as a more cohesive piece that stands very strongly alongside the rest of the content on both Manafon and the forthcoming Died In The Wool.

[missouriman]

Is baht habit infact David Sylvian? Just wondered...

Thanks for the update, bh.