David Sylvian - Gone To Earth (remastered, expanded)

I have a sort of extra-sensory perception relegated solely to picking up the faint signals thrown off by the arrival of music I want in a music store at a specific location. Be it a brand new disc only available as an import or some equally hard-to-find domestically-released item, or even something I desperately wanted to find used, I will awake with an urge - no, urge is too weak a word - a need to hit up a particular music store, and it has to be that day. Like a psychic who leads police to hidden evidence, I can't say specifically what I'll find, but I'll know it when I find it. More often than not, I am rewarded with exactly what I had been hoping to find. I must trust nature and the universe on this. I have been given a gift and must not abuse it by neglecting the call of music. When nature calls, you have no choice but to take the call. Nature won't leave messages on an answering machine.

As I sat at work yesterday morning, I began to pick up the faint, weak signals of something special sitting in the racks of my local indie music chain store. I couldn't say specifically what it was, as usual, but I knew as the morning wore on that it was undeniable - music was calling out to me, and I must heed that call. I took off at lunch to meet whatever fate awaited me.

I began my usual scan of the racks. I walk up and down each aisle, the most dedicated and thorough "just looking" browser you will find. I stumbled upon a few things that ticked lightly at my senses, but none of them were it. For a moment I considered that I was possibly supposed to pick up Buckethead's new guitar-shred fest Bucketheadland 2, but no . . . something wasn't right with that. I continued looking. The Who? Maybe - Tommy was just released as a Deluxe Edtion hybrid but again, no - this was not it either. The S section, however yielded up the motherload . . . David Sylvian's import-only release of the remastered Gone To Earth in its originally imagined two-disc layout, packed with extra tracks in the form of new mixes for three album tracks. The discs come housed in a gorgeous, glossy digipak with some new artwork fleshing out the inside panels. What's more, they also had the three other remasters - Secrets of the Beehive, Brilliant Trees, and Alchemy: An Index Of Possibilities, and a quick check of the R section revealed a lone copy of the Japan-reunion-under-a-pseudonym Rain Tree Crow. What to do, what to do? I clearly could not afford all of these, or even a couple. It would have to be one for today, until I could gather my old discs to trade in on the new, remastered ones. Gone To Earth it was - not only is it my favorite, it also offered the most "bang for the buck" with what amounts to 7 bonus tracks.

Article Author: Tom Johnson

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