Nine Horses
Snow Borne Sorrow

THE REVIEW

There is a place on the planet where you don't keep your feet on the ground, not because of a lack of modesty, but because for years now, you've learned to levitate and fully enjoy its wonderful influences.
We poor mortals, who indeed keep our feet firmly on the ground, caught up with the problems and difficulties of everyday life, often turn the sum of these problems and difficulties into less noble thoughts, a good drink to forget, a lush joint to relax body and soul, a footbath while doing crossword puzzles, or yet another match on Pro Evolution Soccer 4, all for the purpose of finally getting a good sleep and hopefully waking up tomorrow with a few less annoyances than yesterday.
In that place above, hidden at some unknown latitude, people who levitate lightly twenty, thirty meters above the sky have fewer problems than we do, but they become messengers of our problems and difficulties, putting into music everything we accumulate in our brains while waiting for the next implosion.
They say what we fail to say, at least they say it with words that we, even carefully searching through our bag, would never find.

Taking on the role of spokesperson for this mission, the mission of telling the true human condition from the inside, not from the outside, is once again the guru David Sylvian, who, having finally freed himself from the psychological chain by which Sony held him tightly until 2002, calls upon yet another group of collaborators more or less unknown to most and produces an album from another time, in the sense that it is at least 15 years ahead.
And to be ahead today, you don't necessarily have to rely on extreme electronics, but on a healthy minimalism that gives the listener the ephemeral feeling that what they are listening to is very easy to play, while, by listening carefully, you'll notice myriad imperceptible variations on the themes, making such work a kind of crossroads between jazz, fusion, ambient, and avant-garde.
For this experiment, Sylvian wanted his inseparable brother Steve Jansen alongside him and a group of people who know exactly what they're doing and do it divinely.
Indeed, the group includes German electronic composer Burnt Friedman, who had already collaborated with Our Man in the dead-end atmospheres created in the remix of "Late Night Shopping" last year, and to whom Sylvian had returned the favor by appearing in the EP "Out In The Sticks."

Unlike Christian Fennesz, who literally electrified the Guru with his storm of Stanton needles decapitating vinyl and shortwave radio perpetually zapping, Burnt Friedman elaborates very light electronic tapestries, sometimes just hinted at, and while some innovation might be lost, the enjoyment of the other instruments and especially Sylvian's timeless voice is gained, now a character who strolls comfortably on a thin line between dream and reality.
Often acting as a bridge between Friedman's electronics and Sylvian's perennial ecstasy is Norwegian trumpeter Arve Henriksen, who manages to move terribly at ease among various sounds not fitting for his instrument. To be honest, I think a still-alive Miles Davis would have done anything to get the scores of this work.
Swedish singer Stina Nordenstam also deserves praise, appearing right in the first track of the album, the swingy "Wonderful World," with a style that sits between Erikah Badu and Björk. Have I just written an impossible comparison? Listen to it and prepare to be astonished. Stuff that, for once in life, you'd want to have taste buds in the inner ear instead of in the mouth.
And naturally, the reassuring presence of the person who today represents the perfect professional and human match with Sylvian can't be missing: Ryuichi Sakamoto, who appears in several tracks obviously seated at his piano suspended in the troposphere.
The soft but stern "Darkest Birds" reminds us that weapons used excessively are unlikely to bring about the much-often-spoken-about but never actually realized global peace. And then there are talks of religious wars in "The Banality Of Evil," with a phrase that summarizes it all: Your god, in my eyes, does not look like a god.
The group’s performance in the song "A History Of Holes" is splendid, where one laments having done everything possible in their life in search of inner perfection, yet the feeling remains in the soul that not enough has been done. Particular chills because this song inevitably takes you back to the golden period of "Forbidden Colours.".
And as the album closes, the very track that a while ago David Sylvian agreed to sing for Burnt Friedman, the unsettling "The Librarian," which starts with an exhortation to keep low because out there they're shooting at head height, with quotes of an Allah never tired of embracing an indefinite number of martyrs.

Hard concepts to digest, immersed in music that serves as the perfect backdrop to these times of great confusion, where you know if you leave the house but no one can assure you that you will return. And in doubt, I suggest taking the MP3 player with "Snow Borne Sorrow"... it's fundamental to die with a smile, even a bitter one, on your lips.
Until the next magic.