ALCHEMY - AN INDEX OF POSSIBILITIES

"Alchemy - An Index of Possibilities" is a compilation album by UK artist David Sylvian. The album was released through Virgin Records in December 1985. It bridges the gap between Sylvian´s debut- and sophomore full-length studio albums "Brillant Trees" (June 1984) and "Gone to Earth" (September 1986).

"Alchemy - An Index of Possibilities" compiles material from two different recording projects. The four tracks on Side A were written for and appeared in a Japanese autobiographical film and the 18:55 minutes long "Steel Cathedrals", which was commisioned by a tv-company. All tracks are ambient/experimental new age/world music, which is solely instrumental. There are a couple of vocal samples/chants/spoken word samples, but we are not graced by the warm melancholic vocals of David Sylvian.

It´s not exactly what you´d have expected from Sylvian at this early point in his solo career, and I have to give it to him, that he is an extremely bold man, who does only exactly what he wants to do, at any given time. The most interesting thing about that statement is that it´s actually not true for this particular project, as Sylvian was not initially interested in the project, but as he was offered money and needed them at the time, he agreed to deliver the music for the film. Virgin Records picked up on the new music, and chose to release "Alchemy - An Index of Possibilities".

While the music is certainly both well performed and well produced, the ambient repetitive nature of the music, make the tracks hard to tell apart, and to my ears "Alchemy - An Index of Possibilities" soon becomes pleasant background music. A 2.5 star (50%) rating is warranted.