It’s certainly not uncommon that bands and people who were popular (or sort of) in the Eighties decide to resurface again at the dawn of the new millennium. So, if Duran Duran made it, Tears For Fears at least tried and even Jimmy Somerville put (wasted, actually) his two pence upon fate, then why can’t there be room for Steven Lindsay? After having being at the head of Big Dish until the beginning of the Nineties, Lindsay had buried himself in his own universe of oblivion, or maybe of lack of inspiration, or just of possible shortage of record deals. The fact is, just when we had nearly stopped listening to Satellites, now even Steven is back. And, for once, it’s such good news. Exit Music is a collection of truly inspired pieces of music, beautifully produced (albeit only apparently simplistic) and soaked in languid tunes. After the instrumental “14th” (maybe an elegy to his fourteen years of silence?), the record starts waltzing with the gorgeous “Breakdown” (a musical resurrection despite the title) whose incipit is vaguely reminiscent of James Brown’s “It’s a man’s man’s world” (hey, Alicia Keys has lifted a few chords, so why can’t Steven?). Then it’s all a feast of sweetness and sadness, with bittersweet emotional chiaroscuros blended with piano-driven (sometimes Indian-tinged) minimal arrangements and haunting strings. Craig Armstrong (who co-wrote most of the Satellites tracks) is responsible for them in “Butterfly” and “November”, certainly one of Exit Music’s highlights, though it’s hard to pick a favourite.

Despite being all down-tempos and despite the title, Exit Music manages to be oddly uplifting, eventually leaving you with that sort of (not so recent) James Grant kind of craving to… keep looking for the light, even when all around everything is desperately dark, nearly as black as the album’s artwork.