Flux & Mutability

e years following the release of Sylvian's SECRETS OF THE BEEHIVE witnessed a remarkable pair of collaborations with Can's bassist, co-founder, producer, and restless experimenter. Czukay and Sylvian receive sole billing on 1988's FLUX AND MUTABILITY, the second of these sessions, but three core members of the (then disbanded) Can--Czukay, Michael Karoli, and Jaki Liebezeit--contributed to these two exquisite tracks.
FLUX AND MUTABILITY belongs to that rare category of albums--including such masterpieces as Cocteau Twins' VICTORIALAND, Talk Talk's SPIRIT OF EDEN, and Sylvian's own BRILLIANT TREES--whose impossible beauty suggests the likelihood of angelic intervention. The splendid ambient weave of "A Big Bright Colourful World" interlaces Sylvian, Czukay, and Karoli's fragile guitar lines, Czukay's radio and dictaphone samplings, Sylvian's warm, lambent keyboards, Liebezeit's nearly subliminal percussion, the multihued flugelhorn of Markus Stockhausen (yes, Stockhausen fils), and Michi's ephemeral utterances. The music develops and matures in timeless suspension befitting the album's title. "A New Beginning Is in the Offing" features only Sylvian and Liebezeit (on African flute). As mixed by Czukay and Sylvian, the duo's tumbling and unfolding banks of sound conjure open-ended cloudland vistas of the most sublime and celestial aspect.|