Mathieu first collaborated with Sylvian at 2011’s Punkt festival in Kristiansand, Norway, when he performed a live remix of Sylvian / Czukay’s ambient classicPlight and Premonition. “I’ve lived with Stephan’s work for many years,” says Sylvian. “After hearing his remix at Punkt I decided he’d 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 Sylvian’s 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, 2005’s The Good Son vs. The Only Daughter, took the material in varied and lusher directions, but Wandermüde puts it under a microscope. The catharsis of the original is tested and reinvigorated by Mathieu’s treatment, which he performs in real time.

“My work with computers is always live,” Mathieu explains. “I’m feeding selected material into a software process and record the output, which I either take as is, or discard completely. I don’t multi-track, edit or re-arrange, I’m 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.

“With David’s recordings I melted them with my instruments, recorded several takes and picked the best ones. While I first processed the recordings quite heavily, it took me a while to notice that I come to better results when David’s performance shines through much more clearly. For instance with the original guitar from Blemish, I only applied a soft processing and made a room recording of playing this version back through two Fender Twin amps.”

A guest from Blemish also makes a return appearance on this album. Guitarist and electronics artist Christian Fennesz contributes to “Deceleration,”. “‘Fire in the Forest,’ just as its sister ‘Transit’ on Fennesz’ Venice album are to me perfect models for what a 21st century song can be,” says Mathieu. “Since he had only a couple of days to work on this, he came up with this rough and very beautiful recording of his guitar playing in the last moment. It was love at first sight for me.”

Wandermüde is exquisitely planned but executed in real time, drawn from old pains but breathing with new life. The title of the album – “tired of wandering” – implies a fatigue, a resignation, and an end; but the music itself crackles with suspense and anticipation, marking a moment of reflection before a journey begins.

TRACK LISTING

A1 Saffron Laudanum 08:36
A2 Velvet Revolution 07:50
B1 Trauma Ward 06:00
B2 The Farther Away I Am 11:10
C1 Dark Pastoral 04:05
C2 Telegraphed Mistakes 14:04
D1 Deceleration 05:22
D2 I Can`t Pretend To Care 08:40

Upon examining the eventful life of Can bassist Holger Czukay, one might conclude that this intrepid musician was a loner. His turbulent career exuded an enduring eccentricity governed by a boundless free spirit. Yet Czukay, who passed away unexpectedly last year at the age of 79, constantly emphasized that his creativity was always contingent upon a musical partner, whether that was a skin-and-bones counterpart or an anonymous manifestation that interacted with him through radio waves or, as happened later, the internet. Nonetheless, most of his partners were of flesh and blood.

His oeuvre, which is in itself cinematic in nature, boasts a cast worthy of a Martin Scorsese film. Only the most interesting character actors were cast: Brian Eno, Phew, Rolf Dammers, David Sylvian, Annie Lennox, Jah Wobble, his Can bandmates… the list could go on and on.

Many of these masterpieces are now out of print, so Groenland Records, who already released the highly acclaimed retrospective ‘CINEMA’ to mark the occasion of Holger’s 80th birthday at the beginning of the year, has taken it upon themselves to release reissues of Holger’s music in order to make it accessible once again.

A previously unreleased Duke Ellington session, recorded by producer genius Conny Plank at Rhenus Studio in Cologne in 1970.

One session, two songs: three takes each of “Alerado” and “Afrique.”

They weren’t just alternate takes, like you often get on reissues of jazz classics; you can really hear Ellington working. He’s not just looking for the best take to get something clearly defined, he’s experimenting.

The tempi change, solo instruments are switched around, and, on the last take of “Afrique,” you can even hear soprano vocals.

“Alerado” is a straightforward swing number, it features Wild Bill Davis on the organ, and, most notably, Cat Anderson on the trumpet, who provide a foundation for striking concepts of sonority and solo performance. The musical approach to “Afrique” is freer and more avant-garde; the foundation of the piece is a tom-tom based beat that is sustained throughout and layered with improvisations and arranged segments.

In addition to the musical aspects, this recording also documents a special moment: an American jazz legend in the twilight of his life encounters a young sound engineer and producer who is preparing to give pop a new sound.