Nine Horses: Snow Borne Sorrow
June 14th, 2006
If you’re a fan of David Sylvian, you can’t miss this album. While I thought his previous album “Blemish” was difficult listening in parts, “Snow Borne Sorrow” is completely a pleasure to listen to. This album has an effortless sound to it: perfectly blended vocals, live guitars, drums and horns backed by lush electronic backgrounds. I feel it’s as close as a perfect album as I’ve heard in a long time. (By the way, “Tree Colored See” by Nobody & The Mystic Chords of Memory is another.)
The Nine Horses lineup is comprised of David Sylvian on vocals, Steve Jansen (his brother) on various instruments, Burnt Friedman on electronics, Ryuichi Sakamoto on piano, and Arve Henricksen on trumpet.
The songs of this album have a lot of weight to them, and there is a sense of sadness to both the music and the vocals. I don’t think you can really put this in any particular genre: there are elements of electronica, jazz, and pop. But to put this album in any of those categories dismisses how much it is more than the sum of it’s parts.