Personnel: David Sylvian (guitar, synthesizer, samples); Robert Fripp (guitar); Frank Perry (bells, bowed gong).
Originally conceived as music for multi-media installations, as an audio-only experience Sylvian's album provides us with a soporific dose of ambient sounds. The title track is made up of cyclical motifs of bells and sustained chords reverberating like ripples on a pond, punctuated by a rich gong-like guitar chord. This is suffused with hushed animal calls, fragments of fuzzy talk-radio programmes and the garbled falsetto of contributor Robert Fripp.
"Epiphany" takes sampled material of passing trains and hushed church bells and a plaintive human wailing phrase to make an all-too-brief interlude. Continuing in much the same atmospheric vein "The Beekeeper's Apprentice" is a summer doze in a wooded glade. Imagine chandeliers tinkling in the warm breeze and half-hear the faint sound of a distant civilisation. The hypnotic doze is peppered by shards of muted feedback buzzing in and out like an inquisitive bee, associating the music with its title. Bearing in mind this music was intended to accompany art installations it does work as an ambient album.
Track Listing:
The Beekeeper's Apprentice
Epiphany
Approaching Silence
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