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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
I think I've been here before..., August 20, 2002
Aaaaarrrrrrggghh. I can't believe I blithely purchase everything with David Sylvian's name on it. With the exception of a remix or two (Wave is nice, but did I really need another version?) and 'The Song Which Gives The Key To Perfection', I already have everything from other sources. Conceptually, it doesn't even work as a collection because there is no flow or consistent tone to the pieces. Ambient here, vocal there, experimental after that. Bleah.In the same purchase from Amazon, I also ordered JBK 'Playing in a Room With People', so it was kind of a double whammy for me. Now I have 'Big Wheels In Shanty Town' on three CDs. If JBK and Sylvian love this piece so much to release it three times, perhaps this is proof that they should record another album together. After Everything and Nothing, Approaching Silence, and now Camphor, I'm ready for some new music.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not much bang for the buck, November 3, 2002
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.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Messing with the goods, July 11, 2002
An ok but not stellar introduction to Sylvian's instrumental work. Another reviewer tore this as not succeeding as an ambient collection -- since several of the tracks are far from "ambient" this is not surprising. Perhaps, if Sylvian had stuck to a purely ambient retrospective this would have worked better. As it is, he has co-joined the squawk of his Miles-as-Pimp-era composition All My Mother's Names with serene and often beautifully woven pieces like Answered Prayers and Plight, and thrown in some of his arty but annoying stuff for good measure (Camphor, A Brief Conversation). The instrumental takes on songs are fine, and again I'm reminded what a phenomenal album the Rain Tree Crow project produced, but somehow it doesn't all hang together and there isn't much justification for material like The Song Which Gives the Key to Perfection when so much other material is around. Interested listeners would be better directed to some of the source material: Flux and Mutability is readily available as a budget item, the second half of Gone To Earth is hard to find and expensive but contains the best encapsulation of Eno's music for films next to the master himself, and the Rain Tree Crow album is superb.
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~ David Sylvian
~ David Sylvian
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~ David Sylvian
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by David Sylvian 
