gavin bryars never failed me yet

Gavin Bryars’ simple stretched out sound-documents drift, foreign and handsome. This time last year saw Touch Records release Philip Jeck’s take on his Sinking Of The Titanic (first performed 1972) from a 24 minute mountain into a 72-minute all-engrossing masterpiece – a Goya in music – dark and light; real, with shocking detail and enveloping presence. 

When I was too young, he made Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet. A cockney tramp sings a short sad hollow refrain, over and over and over. Subtle strings sweep in, softening. They billow slowly, behind his whistling teeth and dropped syllables, to envelop in a slowly curling cloud of sleepy violins, cellos and the clipped echo of plucked strings.

Gavin Bryars – Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet

The recordings (made when out filming a documentary about the homeless in London) are old and imperfect, yet it’s completely flawless. Everything sounds overdone after the knockdown simplicity of this.

Go to Touch for the wonderfully minimal clean cardboard packaging of the 72 minute long Sinking Of The Titanic. You can read the history of the song here. It was originally released on Brian Eno’s Obscure label, then again with Point Records in ‘93. If you can read Russian, someone was inspired to write a short story by the track, which you can read here.