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Christmas gifts… Many of you surely shudder at the sight of these four words. Yet Christmas is much closer than you think… just a handful of weeks away and you'll already be there, walking down your city's streets with nerves on edge and that miserable list compiled hastily… I don't belong to this category of people. I don't know what has led me over time to turn the purchase of Christmas gifts into a splendid and wonderful ritual, a slow and long pleasure that begins right now. Many things, besides the simple pleasure of giving, have played a part: an obsessive-compulsive mania for control, the urge to shop that has always plagued me, and perhaps not least (I admit it) a galloping nervous breakdown…
Anyway, it all starts these days, with the careful compilation of an Excel sheet that's perhaps not very romantic but very useful. A list of names to whom, gradually over the coming weeks, a gift will be matched, studied, targeted, and purchased with patience and love. For example, I've already ordered three copies of this album and will soon decide which lucky names of pseudo-friends they'll be paired with…
“Damage” is a live album. Sylvian and Fripp together, live, not trifles, every applause is a wound that opens, what would it have been like to be there? Recorded in London in 1993, it is the offspring of the tour promoting the duo's album “The First Day” reviewed here by the wonderful Fosca. It is a truly sensual and enveloping journey through many of Sylvian's past masterpieces, masterfully accompanied by every type of sonic experimentation and all kinds of virtuosity.
The rough percussion and guitar open the inevitable “God’s Monkey” and lead us to the still strongly rhythmic “Brightness Falls” then “Every Color You Are” enthralls us, beautiful as never before, slow and suggestive, leading up to the electronic and nervous “Jean The Birdman”. It’s from “Damage” onwards that the real magic arrives… one, two, three pearls in a row. Each track is of absolute beauty, perhaps peaking with “20Th Century Dreaming” with its long, sweet conclusion. Every instrument alternates or enriches and enhances Sylvian's voice, here as beautiful as ever, to close with the slow and beautiful “The First Day.”
An absolute must-have also for the beautiful packaging… Merry Christmas, friends!
Tracklist
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