Thursday, February 10, 2011


Breathless- The Glass Bead Game (1986) MP3 & FLAC


"So christen these kind hearts with names they don't deserve, and measure out the sanity that falls into lunacy, hung bitter, sweet-faded and lost."

Despite his stunning vocal performances on This Mortal Coil's Filigree & Shadow, Dominic Appleton's band Breathless was inexplicably fated to spend the next two decades toiling away in abject obscurity despite being one of the more interesting and talented Post-Punk bands of the mid-eighties. Breathless integrated the dark dream-pop associated with the 4AD label with Appleton's dramatic (and sometimes sinister) vocals, sounding, at times, like a more straightforward version of Dead Can Dance or a more lushly ornate version of Joy Division. On The Glass Bead Game, named after a Hermann Hesse novel, Appleton & co. traverse some dark sonic territory, such as on the memorable "Monkey Talk," where Appleton's vocals take on the cadence of a death-chant as foreboding guitar textures and rolling percussion slowly build a soundscape of beauty and dread. For anyone interested in 4AD-style gloom, Breathless will be a revelation.

The Glass Bead Game (1999 Re-issue Edition)
1. Across the Water  (4:54)
2. All My Eye and Betty Martin  (5:22)
3. Count on Angels  (4:39)
4. Monkey Talk  (7:31)
5. Every Road Leads Home  (3:54)
6. Touchstone  (5:21)
7. Sense of Purpose  (4:20)
8. See How the Land Lies  (6:28)
9. Stone Harvest  (6:14)



13 comments:

  1. Charlton Nussmeyer IIIFebruary 10, 2011 at 5:19 PM

    Information is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom, wisdom is not truth, truth is not beauty, beauty is not love, love is not music, music is the BEST.
    ~ Frank Zappa

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  2. Thanks for this great record.
    Please, can you upload other Breathless records?
    Thank you anyway for your great work.

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  3. I will download this right now. Thanks!!

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  4. Anonymous, I'll make a deal with you. If you hit the "follow' button (assuming you haven't already done so), I'll post some more Breathless soon. Is there any album in particular that you're looking for?

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  5. scurfie, you're welcome. These Breathless albums are hard to find!

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  6. so hard to find but so easy to THANK YOU ! =)
    my girl friend sned you a big kiss !

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  7. Hi douxee, tell her thanks for the kiss and that there will be more Breathless in the near future- man in the moon

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  8. ok let's go ! =)
    3....2.... one
    starting ignition

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  9. yes thanks. breathless is amazing and chronically underrated.

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  10. k s, I completely agree, which is why I need to get all their stuff up in lossless

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  11. Good stuff, and unjustifiably obscure indeed. I remember seeing an ad for a Breathless album in a magazine in the mid-'90s. I had never heard of them, and something about the ad made me assume they were the latest trip-hop knock-off, Portishead, Tricky, Massive Attack, et al. being the big thing in dark British music at the time. How wrong I was!

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  12. wolfspider, well, their album covers actually tended to look a little like a trip-hop band, but the contents are oh so different

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