I have so many CDs and so many songs on my iPod that inevitably I’ll come across something that I don't immediately recognise. Whenever I'm shuffling I try very hard not to look at the display and it's very rare that I don't guess what's playing. It sometimes takes a while but usually I get there.
But this one completely stumped me - I thought perhaps it was something form a Brian Eno installation, but it was too dark for that. The swirly guitar sounds seemed familiar, vaguely like the David Sylvian / Holger Czukay albums but there was more drone, deep bell sounds and a far more unsettling air than something like the wonderfully tranquil "Mutability". I simply couldn't place it at all so I had to look…
I was close - David Sylvian - "The Beekeeper's Apprentice". Originally from the rare Ember Glance CD that accompanied a 1990 installation that DS did with the artists Russell Mills.
I rather liked it, the gongs and bells offset the guitar rather nicely, there was a slightly disquieting feel about it and although it runs for over half an hour the piece didn't get boring. The weird thing is though, I genuinely don't ever remember listening to it before.
Not once.
It was more widely on released the Approaching Silence CD in 1999. Three tracks on that disc – this one, along with "Epiphany" also from the Ember Glance thing, plus "Approaching Silence" from a 1994 installation in collaboration with Robert Fripp.
Now, "Approaching Silence" I remember, it’s a fine piece of ambient soundscaping. And I played "Epiphany" just now and I remembered that one too - a short and sweet little track. But "The Beekeeper’s Apprentice"? Nope. Never heard it before, I'm sure. Yet I've had the CD for seventeen years, and it's been on my iPod for quite some years too. Weird.
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