David Sylvian & Stephan Mathieu
★★★
Wandermüde
SAMADHISOUND. CD/DL/LP
Ambient remix of Sylvian’s 2003 LP Blemish; on (double) vinyl for the first time.
Sylvian’s sixth solo album Blemish was an important marker; a response to the end of his relationships with wife Ingrid Chavez and with Virgin Records that promoted the singer’s desolate presence and more personal (rather than oblique) words by reducing the arrangements to a solemn, ambient drift provided by electronics expert Christian Fennesz and jazz guitarist Derek Bailey. Sylvian cared enough about Blemish to remix it for 2005’s The Good Son Vs. The Only Daughter, and again in 2012 as Wandermüde (literally, “tired of wandering”), where another digital specialist, Stephan Mathieu, stripped out Sylvian’s vocals and thickened the ambient layers. There are still eight tracks, but Wandermüde is essentially a 64-minute immersion in what feels like a lonely, isolated place, where words cannot convey the necessary emotion.