Customer Reviews

Plight & Premonition

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

No melodies, no real starting point nor end. Simply a collection of sounds which should hardly work, but incredibly enough does. Pure magic must have happened in the studio when these two men began working together. People who own Sylvian's Secrets of the Beehive may want to add this one to their collection. Putting it into the cd-changer after Secrets give a "warm" winter atmosphere.

Holger Czukay and David Sylvian are both astounding, singular musical individuals. And both very idiosyncratic. So this could've either been a total mess, or the disc of bliss that it in fact turned out to be. Here, the duo craft something that's not so much a musical composition as it is a work of pure soundscaping, pure ambience that contains little flecks and fragments of other sonic encounters, like glimpsing little details in the landscape as you speed along in a perpetual twilight. Dark, lush, droning, and chasm-deep, these two works work perfectly both as ambient background as well as something for deep, intense listening...where the deeper you listen, the more little details seem to become apparent. Should be purchased in tandem with its bookend work, "Flux and Mutability".

This CD and the accompanying "Flux and Mutability" are excellent backdrops for your imaginings. Like a painting that one sits and contemplates, after a period of time, the viewer or in this case the listener of this music will find him or herself in the midsts of the work. Some may find this haunting, to others releasing, to still others it creates a space that is simply not the day to day. Buy these, and Harold Budd's "the Pearl" and the "White Arcades," sit back, close your eyes, relax and drop into another reality.

A quite interesting late '80's collaboration between Can bassist Holger Czukay and Japan vocalist, guitarist and frontman David Sylvian. Only description I could think of for 'Plight And Premonition' is maybe part art-rock and part experimental. Just two, yet lengthy tracks here. "Plight(The Spiraling Of Water Ghosts)" {18:31} and "Premonition(Giant Empty Iron Vessel)" {16:21}. Both cuts are well written and thought out pieces of sonic sound landscapes. This CD should appeal to all Can fans (old and new, alike) as well as experimental fantatics. You know? The fan{s} that the more farther-out the music is, the better. Great thing about 'Plight...' is that it doesn't out step it's limit. A good pick.

Two beautiful sonic landscapes from a productive period in David Sylvian's fascinating career. Music that needs time and space, but rewards repeated listenings, this confirms Sylvian as a major contributor to ambient and electronic music. Listen to this in conjunction with 'Secrets of the Beehive', and 'Flux and Mutability', the latter another compelling ambient project.

The first (and in my assessment, superior) collaboration between David Sylvian and Holger Czukay, "Plight and Premonition" is two extended ambient works, both around 15 minutes or so, titled "Plight" and "Premonition". The two pieces are, as the best ambient work is, gentle and yet insistent, highly engaging and intriguing. Both twist and turn in subtle ways and prove to be highly engaging.

Having said that, they both are extended ambient compositions-- expecting otherwise would be a mistake. Nonetheless, the album is a highly enjoyable listen and among the better of Sylvian's forays into ambient music. Recommended.

If there is any music that Eno would have loved to have been in on, it would be this CD. "Spiralling..." is spellbinding and I don't think Sylvian has done anything as gorgeous since. I've listened to it so much. I can smell the creaky house, I can see the brilliant flash of the ghost as it swishes past my eye; its sound signature is startingly ingenious. "Giant Vessel" is wonderful as well. Here Czukay has added his trademark radios, etc. Very interesting listen

Plight and Premonition finds David Sylvian and former Can bassist Holger Czukay at the top of their game. The record features two harrowing compositions Plight (The Spiralling of Winter Ghosts) and Premonition (Giant Empty Iron Vessel). As others have pointed out this album should really be appreciated with Flux and Mutability, the recording that followed Plight and Premonition. If P and P is your worst nightmare, F and M represents the dawning of a beautiful, new day. Sylvian and Czukay have created an ambient masterpiece with Plight and Premonition. The instrumentation features piano, prepared piano, harmonium, vibes, synthesizers, guitar, radio tunings and environmental treatments. The whole experience is akin to spending a night in a haunted house; in fact I often bring Plight and Premonition out at Halloween as an appropriate soundtrack for the evening. In the same way that Eno's best ambient work is always teetering between soundscapes and minimalist "music", Sylvian/Czukay have created a work that serves as a brilliant background atmosphere piece and also rewards close listening. I do hope that this recording will be properly re-mastered someday. The dynamics of the L.P. version are more in evidence than on the CD. Still, 5 enthusiastic stars for Plight and Premonition and the also great Flux and Mutability.

This is really the best stuff that Sylvian has done outside of Japan in my opinion. Also I am not usually that fond of Czukay's stuff but this here is simply breathtaking. Simple long peices of athmospheric mood music that are the natural extension of some of Brian Eno's more ambient work. It also improves on Eno's work to some degree (if that is possible, but it is also slightly different).

An exercise in pure atmospherics, Plight & Premonition is one of those albums that's more ambience than music. There are almost no melodies and no prominent instruments, apart from some hazy synths played in a way that suggests a minimum of human involvement. I sometimes get the impression that David and Holger could have just set up some equipment in a quiet haunted place and left for a few hours to see what it recorded. In the same way that instrumental songs create impressions without words, this album paints its pictures in sound without music. The background haze is a constantly shifting cloud; murky, dark and chilly. Random odd noises come and go: faint radio waves, icy chimes, shimmering tones that suggest barely-visible ghosts floating around the room. A quick flute or a few piano notes dart in and out from time to time, but fade as quickly as they come. The overall impression I get is that it's like part of a horror movie soundtrack, where someone's suddenly dropped into a scary place and you know something very bad is going to happen.. eventually.. but in the meantime the film is content to extend the suspense and thoroughly creep you out. Hitchcock probably would have been more than happy to use this album as a score.

If this seems like a staggeringly dull 34 minutes of sound to listen to all on its own, well.. it probably is. It's meant to create a subdued background, not to grab all of your attention. I use it to create an atmosphere for sitting down with the right kind of book, a time-out from normal music or a quiet nest of sound for when I go to sleep. If chilly winter ambience isn't your first preference, you'd be better served to look into Sylvian & Czukay's followup, Flux & Mutability.