The Complete Cathedral Oceans.
Listening to this from disc one to disc three has been a bit like going on a journey, sailing John’s seven seas of echo and reverberation from the comfort of an armchair all the way to the very beginning, to the late 90’s and to the point where his reborn musical fragments of the 80’s appeared on CD in the first Cathedral Oceans. And continuing forward with the music as it progressed through the next two albums you experience how effective and quickly it defined itself during the first half of the last decade, how it grew in scope from its initial platform of early tracks of church-like music and Gregorian stylisation to evolve into a wider and more orchestrated body of work.
Without having any of the springboard of John’s unique lyrics the Cathedral Oceans suite has succeeded beautifully in its style of Foxx communication, evocative and often emotional in parts. Such as the strength of that emotion can be at times, I prefer to imagine invented scenarios or fantasy to the sounds of Cathedral Oceans rather than let it recall for me any actual feelings of experience or memories of things, as it has the power to move you deeply if you relate it to the real situation’s of life. It is the kind of work that you could easily soundtrack to a personal sadness, or fleeting moments of joy, its nature is reflective, internal, and also spiritual.
Going on that round trip through all three albums you are left with a clear sense of how the atmosphere of Cathedral Oceans continued on in influence in John’s work, most obviously of course in My Lost City where C.O.s’ Ad Infinitum, and Return To A Place Of Remembered Beauty are echoed in Hawksmoor Orbital, and Scene 27’, and also in the relationship of C.O.III to Mirrorball. Perhaps there’s an essence of the metaphoric ocean contained within A Secret Life, and its something which might also be found in the D.N.A. tracks such as City Of Mirage, and Over The Mirage.
Twelve years, several albums, and many live performances from John have passed by since I stumbled across Cathedral Oceans ‘quietly’ sitting in the racks of a music store, (undoubtedly a similar experience for others on here also), and its strange to think of the C.O. box set as now being one of the more recent releases of what has become part of ‘the new past history’ of Foxx. On route over those years I confess that I stopped listening to ‘98’s Cathedral Oceans very early on. It has some sublime tracks on it, but back then it just did not capture my imagination. Subsequently I neglected giving C.O.II the repeated listening it deserved, and I entirely lost sight of C.O.III when it appeared in 2005.
This box set offers those of us with missing pieces a long overdue opportunity to hear the hard to obtain C.O.III, and also to see the DVD. Its a debatable point sometimes when work is remarketed, either with a few changes or not, and having stirred my own waves on that one I can’t deny that I’m happily with those who cannot fail to benefit from this particular release. Importantly though, collating and making available the albums in a single presentation will create wider access to John’s music, and to his sound of an imaginary world of ocean and architecture that’s slowly merging in transition.
Cathedral Oceans (I).
There are some exceptionally beautiful tracks that are always a pleasure to hear on this album, the stunning Infinite In All Directions, and the subtle If Only, and the title track: Cathedral Oceans with its Gardenesque intro’ that morphs ever so gracefully into a more warmer version of a Metamatic era instrumental, reminding me of a slowed down Glimmer. There’s also the deeply moving Avenham Collonade, and both the magnificent Sunset Rising, and City As Memory each leave me wishing that John had composed more tracks such as these with Peter Griffiths.
Historically, the first Cathedral Oceans album was never plain sailing for me (excuse the pun) there’s something about the technique of certain tracks that at best just does not gel for me, and at worst leaves me feeling slightly depressed (an effect I’ve also since had with some of My Lost City). The other thing that’s always stayed with me though about this particular album is the ‘first impressions’ syndrome. Back in ’98 my initial opinion of Cathedral Oceans was that it felt like a message in a bottle thrown into the water many decades beforehand to eventually wash up on our shores, and that the music belonged back in the long gone time of The Garden album, or with songs such as Woman On A Stairway, and Dance With Me.
When I considered that Cathedral Oceans was perhaps actually meant as an ambient album I couldn’t get away from the nagging doubt that if that were the case then it felt somewhat outdated in ’98, its atmosphere seemingly leaned towards the more distant works of Eno, with the addition of religious sounding vocal intonation, rather than leaning to the (what was then) more recent forms of ambient via artists such as Aphex Twin or Biosphere.
Maybe the real crux of the matter was that John’s music up until ’98 had become a memory back then rather than a reality, thus the nature of the album sounded almost like a requiem for a long lost musical hero (and that low audio quality present on the original Cathedral Oceans release unavoidably added a chilly undertone to that feeling). Doubts about the nature of Cathedral Oceans being ‘not quite so new’ were of course correct, but I didn’t know the facts then, that its genesis hailed from ’83 and ’87 and that John had not been given the green light to release this kind of work back then. There’s a description on Wikipedia that describes this Cathedral Oceans album as being ‘fragmented due to its long gestation as a project’, which for me seems quite apt. It’s a shame that we were denied the pleasure of this particular musical direction of John’s during his former most visible years, but it’s good that it’s since become something so very much larger to be enjoyed, and I now feel that when listening to the three albums together there’s actually a timeless quality to the Cathedral Oceans suite.
Cathedral Oceans II & III.
The second and third albums in the Cathedral Oceans suite expand and improve even more on the interesting template set by the initial album, each moving towards a more unified direction in their content, with the third album feeling not unlike one long sweeping composition.
While the birdsong that opened the first Cathedral Oceans album was relatively faint in its use and seemed to be a nod back towards The Garden album title track, the second Cathedral Oceans album is much more upfront in beginning with its avian chorus in the minimalist and effectively titled Revolving Birdsong. The presence of birds at the start of the first two C.O. albums establishes a definite link between these works, and where Revolving Birdsong has a warm air about it, the Cathedral Oceans title track has a strange atmosphere that seems to alternate between cool and warm, reminding me of the eerie intro’ to that early version of Twilights Last Gleaming on side two of The Golden Section remaster.
There’s no birdsong at the beginning of the third Cathedral Oceans album, instead the soaring Oceanic leads us into the final work and its clear things have continued to change and merge in the world of Cathedral Oceans. The first track of each of the albums act’s almost like a chapter heading indicating the progress of change within the story, or maybe I’m just imagining that, but its one of those things that I’d love to have confirmed. On the opening track of the first Cathedral Oceans there’s the impression that at this early stage of the transformation we are on the ground and enclosed by trees. By the start of the second Cathedral Oceans album there is no more ground to stand on, as indicated by the Revolving Birdsong, and we now exist at the very top of those trees.
By the third album we are into the final stages of change, and with Oceanic there’s a sense of being above or below an endless ocean, though of course Cathedral Oceans is a metaphor for being enclosed within an environment that completely envelopes us, and while such a thing might be strange and mysterious we are able to adapt and to survive within it. Often when I listened to the music of Cathedral Oceans with headphones on and while walking about outside I’d think of the fictional and transformed world’s of J.G. Ballards metamorphic The Crystal World, and the fantasmagoric Hothouse by Brian Aldiss, worlds of crystal, and of vegetation, rather than of ocean. Like John’s Cathedral Oceans these are environments that have swept over us threatening to consume us completely, frightening, and hypnotically beautiful all at once.
Listening to the second Cathedral Oceans album in the context of the box-set has allowed me to rediscover some of its greater moments such as Shimmer Symmetry, and Stillness And Wonder, and some of the tracks take on a different feeling when you consider them as part of a middle chapter. The third album however has been the most interesting of the three for me, its likely an old work for most people on the forum here, but for me it’s a completely new experience, and although there are many great tracks over all of the albums I think that the third album is the tightest and most interesting part. Highlights for me are Oceanic, The Shadow Of A Womans Hand, Serene Velocity, Eternity Sunrise, and the melancholic last track Metanym which has such an old world feeling about it, like the soundtrack to some epic Sergio Leone movie, or witnessing the scene of a great ship leaving harbour, destined never to return...
To go back to my much earlier statement that a work from John was like a message in a bottle washing up ashore a long time later, well the Complete Cathedral Oceans box-set has been a treasure that’s been worth waiting for.
The DVD.
I really did not enjoy this and felt that it added nothing to the music – but wait – hold back that blasphemy – context is everything.
John’s images to the music of Cathedral Oceans are clearly not to be viewed as a sit-down filmic experience with your body fixed to the spot as you stare at a flat screen surface. These images are meant to be part of an in-situ installation, projected onto the surfaces of various random structures that you would walk past, perceiving the visuals almost unconsciously as they change ever so very slowly over a long period of time. These atmospheric elements are there for you to casually discover by chance within that environment, the ghosts of masks and leaves appearing and fading away like will-o-the-wisps as you absorb the enigmatic sounds of Cathedral Oceans echoing out all around you.
Have I got it right?
