Silver Stories Of The Wind... Hold Everything Dear...Today...

cindytalk - hold everything dear (album preview) by experimedia

"Responsible for some of the most affecting post-punk, industrial and dark ambient music of the 1980s and early 90s, Cindytalk is currently enjoying a new lease of life as an umbrella for Gordon Sharp's solo experiments in digital minimalism. This is his third album to be released on Vienna's Editions Mego, following last year's 'Up Here In The Clouds', and it's another superbly crafted and very plaintive suite, Sharp's quietly intense electronics augmented with piano, found sounds and field recordings processed into abstraction. With its sepulchral drones and eerily mystical chimes, 'How Soon Now' is reminiscent of Lustmord, Lull and Inade's demonic ambient, scant preparation for such unprepossessingly pretty piano sketches as 'Hanging In The Air' and 'On The Tip Of My Tongue' – pieces with a pastoral delicacy reminiscent of the 1990 Cindytalk classic The Wind Is Strong. Other tracks evince a weary beauty that makes us think of Fennesz and The Caretaker, the soundtrack to a European isolationist European road movie that has yet to be made. Taking its title from a John Berger book of the same name and dedicated to the late Matt Kinnison, who contributed musically before his untimely passing, Hold Everything Dear is a thoughtful work, charged with sadness and, above all else, a palpable longing for things just beyond human reach. Boasting new artwork by the legendary David Coppenhall, and available as CD in 4-panel digipack or vinyl in lush gatefold sleeve, it's an essential new chapter in the story of one of Britain's last great post-punk visionaries."
(Boomkat)

"Naming his new album after a popular book by contemporary British philosopher & artist John Berger, the chameleonic Gordon Sharp continues in his 30+ year quest to uncover new sonic territory. Once affiliated with the 4AD and Cocteau Twins/This Mortal Coil community, his material in more recent days, over a trilogy of fine albums including this, skirts around the areas of dark ambient, sound-art, field recordings, drone & lovely minimal classical arrangements. His is a wondrous, spiritual, eerie and sometimes industrial sound that glistens, thunders and pulsates with enigmatic possibilities. From opener 'How Soon Now...' your sound-world is his absorbing vision that wanders from fuzzy, clanking dystopia, organic scrunch & cavernous ambient-noir to the reflective piano-laden vignettes he perforates the overall mood with. Out of the many artists practising in this field today, Cindytalk's output is amongst the most expressive & fascinating out there. This sonic hinterland between absorbing dream-scapes & the creeping dread of an extra-terrestrial nightmare supplies you with some really imaginative scenarios to grapple with. It's a rich, ever-evolving sound leaping from the modern stable of effortless class that is Peter Rehberg's Editions Mego."
(Norman Records)

Hold Everything Dear for John Berger by Gareth Evans

"Cindytalkの1年ぶりの新作は、中心人物であるGordon Sharp以外のフィーチャーした三部作の1枚目で、いまは亡きMatt Kinnisonとともに2006-2011年のあいだにレコーディングされた共作であり、彼に捧げられています。アルバム・タイトルと同名のJohn Bergerの本からインスパイアされており、美しいピアノのメロディーの多用とファウンド・サウンド／フィールドレコーディングによって、トラック間の定義がもはや曖昧になる地点にまで働きかけるぼんやりとしたサウンドトラック。前2作でのサウンドを抽象の極点へと押しやります。"
(Doppelganger Records,Tokyo)

"Anyone who is infatuated with the more ambient end of electronic experimentalism — or is it the more experimental end of electronic ambient music — is already intimately familiar with Cindytalk. This Scottish outfit has been releasing records since the ’80s, carefully and consistently unfolding an aesthetic that’s as quietly disturbing as it is graceful and elegant. So what are the odds that they’ve gone off the rails and lost the plot after all this time? Three words: not bloody likely."
(Big Shot Magazine)

"Cindytalkの1年ぶりの新作～！中心人物であるGordon Sharpと今は亡きMatt Kinnisonが2006-2011年のあいだに録音した作品です～。抽象的なピアノのメロディーの多用とフィールドレコーディングによって、全体の輪郭のぼやけた美しさが創出されていますね。因みに、本作はMatt Kinnisonとインスパイアを受けたという小説家John Bergerに捧げられています。是非！"
(Record Shop Reconquista)