david sylvian - steel cathedrals

as a child growing up in and near manchester in england, i was surrounded by architecture that spanned hundreds of years. strangely, the works that echo over the span of the fourty plus years since i lived there are not the most stunning or historical but are the more massive structures like the viaducts and gasometers that somehow stand out not only for their scale but also for their melding of the functional with the aesthetic, albeit in an industrial frame of mind.

here’s an image of stockport viaduct (thanks to gordon gandy for the pic). a more romantic view of the viaduct can be seen here
thanks to manky max black’s flickr page. the extraordinary northern english artist l.s. lowry was also affected by these massive structures . . .
and here are two images of gasometers in manchester . . .

poet dirk bogarde (yes that dirk bogarde) wrote about a familiar iteration of the steel cathedral when he compiled this sensorial listing of a set of experiences, and memories that will be familiar to millions.

steel cathedrals
dirk bogarde
it seems to me, i spend my life in stations.
going, coming, standing, waiting.
paddington, darlington, shrewsbury, york.
i know them all most bitterly.
dawn stations, with a steel light, and waxen figures.
dust, stone, and clanking sounds, hiss of weary steam.
night stations, shaded light, fading pools of colour.
shadows and the shuffling of a million feet.
khaki, blue, and bulky kitbags, rifles gleaming dull.
metal sound of army boots, and smoker's coughs.
titter of harlots in their silver foxes.
cases, casks, and coffins, clanging of the trolleys.
tea ums tarnished, and the greasy white of cups.
dry buns, woodbines, picture post and penguins;
and the blaze of magazines.
grinding sound of trains, and rattle of the platform gates.
running feet and sudden shouts,
clink of glasses from the buffet.
smell of drains, tar, fish and chips and sweaty scent,
honk of taxis; and the gleam of cigarettes.
iron pillars, cupolas of glass, girders messed by pigeons;
the lazy singing of a drunk.
sailors going to chatham, soldiers going to crewe.
aching bulk of kit and packs, tin hats swinging.
the station clock with staggering hands and callous face,
says twenty-five-to-nine.
a cigarette, a cup of tea, a bun,
and my train goes at ten.
if david sylvian and yasayuki yamaguchi’s audio-visual work “steel cathedrals” has any connection to my memories, then it is through their elevation of the functional into the memorable by drawing the viewer into a sense of structures as more than machines or containers, focussing instead on the detail and relationships within their design, the sometimes wavering images compel the viewer to soften their connection to these “hard” objects.

filmed around tokyo in 1984, the music accompanying these images carries much of sylvian’s work with ambient soundscapes along with the voice-over of jean cocteau and sylvian himself.

sylvian’s great skill is the assembling of talented and unique individuals and then creating a sonic collage in which their most fruitful statements are seamlessly blended together. the musicians on steel cathedrals include:
electronics [dictaphone] - holger czukay
flugelhorn - kenny wheeler
guitar [abstractions] - masami tsuchiya
guitar, electronics [frippertronics] - robert fripp
keyboards, tape, percussion [digital] - david sylvian
percussion - steve jansen
piano, strings - ryuichi sakamoto

part one of steel cathedrals . . .

part two of steel cathedrals . . .

if the music cries out for a spot on your ipod, then nip over to amazon where you can buy it as a digital download for $2.90!!