DAVID SYLVIAN & STEPHAN MATHIEU – Wandermude (2023 Reissue w/ Bonus Track) – CD

CD – This 2023 edition was mastered by Stephan Mathieu from the original recordings. Includes bonus track.

Mathieu first collaborated with Sylvian at 2011s Punkt festival in Kristiansand, Norway, when he performed a live remix of Sylvian / Czukays ambient classic Plight and Premonition. Ive lived with Stephans work for many years, says Sylvian. After hearing his remix at Punkt I decided hed be the right person to take an alternate approach to the Blemish files.

The recordings have a beautiful clarity about them due to their simple but sturdy frameworks, and their open-ended architecture makes them ideal for a project of this sort. When Mathieu first heard Blemish, I was quite amazed by the album, its dark beauty . When David sent me the files from the sessions one year ago, they were a pool of wonderful material to me, detached from the songs and original album, while very much connected to David at the same time.

A startling break from Sylvians previous work, Blemish is pensive and spare, wrapping a lyrical raw nerve in extended, drone-like song structures. Recorded in a relatively-quick six week burst, Blemish was cathartic for Sylvian. An earlier remix album, 2005s The Good Son vs. The Only Daughter, took the material in varied and lusher directions, but Wandermde puts it under a microscope. The catharsis of the original is tested and reinvigorated by Mathieus treatment, which he performs in real time.

My work with computers is always live, Mathieu explains. Im feeding selected material into a software process and record the output, which I either take as is, or discard completely. I dont multi-track, edit or re-arrange, Im interested in self-evolving sound with all its rough and sometimes faulty qualities. I never use effects like artificial reverb in my music, so what you hear is rather a piling up of spaces that surround the individual inputs used for my processes.

This 2023 edition was mastered by Stephan Mathieu from the original recordings.

Tracklist:

1. Saffron Laudanum – [08:36]
2. Velvet Revolution – [07:50]
3. Trauma Ward – [06:00]
4. The Farther Away I Am – [11:10]
5. Dark Pastoral – [04:05]
6. Telegraphed Mistakes – [14:04]
7. Deceleration – [05:22]
8. I Can`t Pretend To Care – [08:40] *

* = Bonus Track