Music To Touch The Heart

This extraordinary album features Gavin Bryars's two signature compositions. The Sinking Of The Titanic and Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet. There are myriad versions of these available in different mixes and of differing lengths but I feel the versions here, as produced by Brian Eno and each lasting about 25 minutes, are definitive. They are both extremely moving and emotional pieces if you buy into the minimal sound world and continual repetition, which I do. The Cockpit Ensemble provide the intrumental accompaniment, joined by others on Jesus' Blood such as Derek Bailey and Michael Nyman but really the playing is not the point with these tracks. Titanic is inspired by the story of the band continuing to play as the ship went down. A string ensemble plays a haunting hymn tune throughout but it is mixed and interspersed with spoken reminisences of a woman survivor, whose words hover mostly just outside the range of clarity. Electronic effects gradually indicate the effect of the sinking on the metal of the ship as it slowly sinks and it begins to break up under the pressure. There is a kind of eerie sonar effect and the thought that the band's music is somehow still reverberating through time underwater. There is no climactic moment when it can be sensed that the ship has finally sunk beneath the waves but the whole illustrates that nightmare fascination with the iconic event. Jesus' Blood is built around the voice of an old man singing the refrain from what is presumably an old hymn tune ( although not one I am familiar with ) I'm not sure what the politically correct description of the old man should be, at the time his voice was recorded back in 1970, there would have been no qualms in describing him as a tramp. His voice however has a dignity and strength that echoes through the years. There is no back story to him and no forward story after his voice was utilised, it has been impossible to trace who he was or what happened to him. It was simply serendipity that lead his song to be in front of a microphone that was recording during the making of a documentary programe on the homeless and further serendipity that led to Bryars hearing it and adding the understated musical developments beneath a continual loop of the song. This really is something you either love or hate but if it does touch your heart it is something you will return to. And happily this extended version is a Waits free zone.