Cornelius - Sensurous & Sensurround

State-of-the-art easy listening from downtown Tokyo

Subtitled Music & Motion Pictures Of The 21st Century, this extraordinary CD/ DVD combo comprises a reissue of Cornelius’ 2006 album, originally released on Matador, coupled with an accompanying DVD of visuals commissioned for each of the album’s 12 tracks.

Dreamy, endlessly inventive, almost childlike in its elastic musicality and full of risk-taking at every turn, Sensuous… has acquired the reputation of being Cornelius’ most stylised and conceptual album, drawing on a small collection of core elements: wind chimes, acoustic and electric guitars, retro synths and layered vocals. Magical moments seem too numerous to mention here, but note must be made of the cut-and-paste reinterpretation of Breezin’, as originally popularised by Gabor Szabo and George Benson. There’s also Toner, whose featured instrumentation includes piano, keyboards, photocopier and dot matrix printer, and the spectacular tonal manipulations on the carillion-like Like A Rolling Stone. Most surprisingly, though, has to be the reconstruction of the old Rat Pack standard Sleep Warm, which comes with vocoder, antique synth and fake surface noise, before the album comes full circle, back to the wind chimes.

4 stars 4 stars 4 stars 4 stars

Cherry Red | CD BRED 368 (CD+DVD)

Reviewed by Grahame Bent
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