from Sylvian / Fripp - Damage (1994)

"Damage" and "The First Day", titles of the two albums resulting from the collaboration between David Sylvian and Robert Fripp, double as titles of two tracks that curiously only appear on the live Damage album, tracks which, being the only new ones that sound like they were spearheaded by Sylvian, are also the only ones truly worth keeping from their encounter, showing that their artistic relation only seemed to function properly when David took the lead, and that as such he was entirely right in passing over the invitation for him to take on vocal duties for King Crimson. 

That's not to say Fripp is irrelevant in this aesthetic equation: just like his contributions on Gone to Earth were instrumental in working through the emotional turmoil that moved tracks of immense cathartic power like Wave (whose Fripped-up version featured here is, symptomatically, much poorer and rushed), his restrained input in those two numbers (momentarily putting his frippertronics gizmo to good use, as if "compressing sound from coal to diamond") does wonders in building a secluded atmosphere to house Sylvian's bitter regrets ("these are only words / now I've only words / once there was a choice"), forlorn musings ("you gave me songs to sing / shadow and sun / earthbound, starblind / tied to someone") and dubious hopes ("can I meet you there? / God knows the place"), which, as usual, are worth months of therapy, with their hurt sees hurt comforting way of picking us up, dusting us off, and getting us shaped up for our next disillusionment. 

The only excuse for the rest of these albums, mostly dominated by Fripp's punishing tantric rock machine (that manages never to come close to the mere notion of completion), is then to consider that maybe it was by contrast that Sylvian was driven to pen some of the most pungent and bare pages in an already singularly introspective songbook; and for all those who have come to rely on him to nurse their bouts of misery and commiseration, when a friend for all seasons cannot be found, and taking a semester off to develop a drinking problem is no longer an option, any addenda of this caliber is always something to be unabashedly grateful for.