Secrets of the beehive

"Best New Reissue" - "If Gone to Earth feels like a labored portrait of the artist, then its follow-up was made on instinct. Released just a year later, Sylvian's masterpiece, Secrets of the Beehive, arrived quickly ... The album's quick creation involved abandoning pieces that had once seemed central to the work as a whole, and it does feel like a statement with the core scooped out. This only adds to its mysterious pull. During the brightest moment, "Let the Happiness In," Sylvian sings over lapping percussion and a brass section that mimics foghorns. Through the dusk, Sylvian prays for the "agony to stop" as the arrangement opens into something that sounds like peace. "As a listener," he has said, "I prefer to be taken through the stages of doubt before being shown the way out." Few albums suspend you so completely".

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