THERE'S A LIGHT THAT ENTERS HOUSES WITH NO OTHER HOUSE IN SIGHT

The first thing you should ask yourself if you want to know whether you'll like this album is whether you like the cover. As the cover, the music on the album is dark and mysterious with contours somewhat difficult to make out. The clearest contours come from the voice of the poet Fritz Wright, who recites some of his poetry here, which inspired this album. He has a quite expressive, calm and deep poet's voice, just right for his lyrical mood pictures. David Sylvian writes, on his website: " Franz, it has to be said, was gravely ill and stoically riding a considerable wave of heavy medication." The voice indeed sounds a bit as if he is fighting his way through the poems, which even adds weight, I'd say. Luckily we can read "Franz Wright has defied expectations and all prior prognoses and has returned from the precipice that is terminal cancer to a precarious, but passionately lived and thoroughly exploited, state of grace."

The music is a single long piece, it could be classified as somewhat minimalist experimental avantgarde music, dark, but with a very emotional , breathing character. It features a well balanced mix of freedom and recurring structures, mainly from the omnipresent pianos, never done in a formalist and rigid way. One could even call it "swinging", if this wouldn't create totally different associations. While something is always is motion, the motions are subtle, like a very gentle wind breezing through the scenery. The atmosphere doesn't change a lot through the about 64 minutes but there is enough variation to keep the attention up. Sounds are very important; the piano and guitar sound very natural and the many samples and electronics add to the "dark forest" mood; nothing of this sounds cold, intellectual and artificial.

This really belongs to the realm of contemporary art music but there it stands out for being emotional, lively and not academic. I think that this works perfectly as what it sets out to be. It is an extremely fascinating composition, but it needs listeners who are open to this kind of free atmospheric musical landscape. Don't look for songs, melodies or clear rhythms.

It is long ago now that David Sylvian started to leave conventional pop and rock music (be it progressive) and set out for less inhabited, stranger spheres. "There's a light that enters houses..." is a very mature work and very rewarding. It is a clear 5 stars for me personally and I'd call it a masterpiece indeed, but it's not "progressive rock" by any means, so the 4 stars description fits it better.