18.02.08
Featured in Fricke's Picks
The Invisible Man
In the Eighties British Zen-glam group Japan, drummer Steve Jansen was as important for what he chose not to play - he is practically vapor on marimba in the band's plaintive classic "Ghosts" - as for his irregular heartbeats in "The Art of Parties" and "Still Life in Mobile Homes." On his solo album, Slope (Samadhisound), Jansen is a constant presence on percussion, keyboards and samples - making slow- blooming, Asian-flavored atmospheres that seem as fragile as rice paper - while giving the front line to singer-lyricists including Anja Garbarek (the daughter of saxophonist Jan Garbarek), Joan Wasser (a.k.a. Joan as Police Woman) and David Sylvian, the ex-Japan singer and Jansen's older brother. Sylvian's showcase "Playground Martyrs" recalls the exotic whispers of the siblings' old band, while "Ballad of a Deadman", with Sylvian and Wasser in sinister duet, is a cowboy-ninja blues with acoustic guitars plucked like kotos and a strangely rousing hanging-party chorus. Jansen contributes a philharmonic's worth of rhythm, riff and color to the song - and does it all like he's just passing through in a cloud of dust.
DAVID FRICKE
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