If you enjoy David Sylvian’s music you may be interested in my blog inspired by his work and that of his collaborators. In recent years I’ve been exploring the recordings of many of the musicians who have contributed to Sylvian’s albums, listening to his own tracks alongside them. The articles flow from this. At the time of writing this there are posts about tracks from Japan’s Tin Drum in 1981 through to Uncommon Deities with Erik Honoré & Jan Bang in 2012. It’s been a privilege to have input to articles from the likes of Richard Barbieri, Mark Isham, Masakatsu Takagi and Russell Mills, amongst others. New entries are posted around every three weeks. Here is a link to a piece on the song ‘Brilliant Trees’ from my all time favourite album of the same name: Brilliant Trees The site is called Vista and you will find a full index of entries under Posts on the menu. I hope you enjoy it.
I published a new article on ‘There is No Love’ by Rhodri Davies/David Sylvian/Mark Wastell. This is being re-released on white vinyl, remixed and remastered, for Record Store Day UK 2019. I interviewed Mark Wastell about the origins of the piece, the original live performance at Cafe OTO in 2016, and the subsequent studio recording. You can find the blog post here: There is No Love
Another new article published, this time on the exquisite ‘Darkest Dreaming’ from Dead Bees on a Cake. It’s one of Sylvian’s perfect album-ending songs. Featuring a sample from Djivan Gasparyan, I love the purity of tone from his duduk playing. Read the article here: Darkest Dreaming
I published a new article on the Sylvian/Fripp live tour in 1993, ‘The Road to Graceland’. I interviewed Pat Mastelotto who told me how we came to audition for the tour (quite a story!) and how it was working with David Sylvian and Robert Fripp. This was Pat’s first time working with Fripp, and led to him joining King Crimson - and of course he is a member of the line-up to this day. Here’s the link - 20th Century Dreaming – live
I have the album on CD as well as the Jean the Birdman EP and the live album Damage plus a sound board recording of that tour. Fantastic stuff. I also saw them live at Massey Hall in Toronto and was blown away after that show. Great article. Didn’t know how P@ joined the band and was a great read.
I'm with Kid Jensen, "Brilliant Trees" really is one of those special songs that place Sylvian among the all-time greats. That horn/organ intro is one of the most perfectly realized feats of composition I've ever heard on a pop record.
Thanks so much for reading. krimson - I saw that tour at the Royal Albert Hall in London. I can totally identify with your reaction, I thought the musicianship was amazing. It was wonderful to interview Pat and to understand the incredible story of how he came to be involved with the tour band. JayDeeEss - 'Brilliant Trees' the album is my all time favourite by any artist, simply because of the impact it had on me when I heard it on release. It sounds totally timeless to me, especially the title track.
I wrote a new piece on 'Taking Islands in Africa' by Japan, exploring how Ryuichi Sakamoto and the band met and subsequently collaborated on this piece. It had never occurred to me that it might be more suited to a Sakamoto album than a Japan one. The start of a fruitful musical partnership that spans the decades. Here's the link: Taking Islands in Africa
The latest blog article focusses on the title track of David Sylvian's album 'Manafon' - a deep dive into the lyric and its inspiration in the life and poetry of R.S. Thomas. I discovered Thomas' poetry through this song - and am grateful that I did. It's a song that brings together many of the themes of the album. Here's the link: Manafon
I've published a new article on 'Red Guitar'.. ..how in the world can it be 35 years since this was released? Looking back it was such a well-crafted package of music, lyrics, sleeve art and video to launch David Sylvian's solo career. There are some great performances from Mark Isham, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Steve Jansen, Steve Nye, Phil Palmer, Wayne Braithwaite and Ronny Drayton. There's a link in the piece to Anton Corbijn's video for the single - one of his first video works - and some studio footage of the sessions at Hansa, Berlin. Here's the article: Red Guitar
Ooh I’ll bookmark these and have a read later. Has DS retired now? Would be a pity. I would really be up for some more Nine Horses material
Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoy them. There are over 20 articles on pieces from 1980-2017 at the site, with new ones published around every three weeks. You’ll find a piece on Nine Horses and there’s another in the works. David has mentioned the word retired and referred to not planning a future in the arts. But he’s an artist, and his volume of collected works was titled Hypergraphia. So I say appreciate an incredible back catalogue.. ..and never say never...
The latest article features Stephan Mathieu's work with David Sylvian. This includes his live remix of 'Plight & Promonition' immediately following its only live performance at the Punkt festival in 2011, and the album 'Wandermüde' released under both their names in 2013. I'm grateful again to have direct input to the blog - Stephan took the time to describe to me his sound processing techniques which were fundamental to both of the projects. When 'Wandermüde' was announced I wondered if we really needed another reworking of the 'Blemish' material, but for me it's a beautifully crafted album and I hope it doesn't slip into obscurity through lack of promotion. Here's the link: Saffron Laudanum
I've always been fascinated by the Nine Horses album and its roots in the 'Secret Rhythms' project by Burnt Friedman & Jaki Liebezeit. Unusually, we have two versions of the track 'The Librarian' - one with Jaki Liebezeit on drums and one with Steve Jansen. It's fascinating to listen to their different performances, which (incredibly to me) are in two different time signatures. I was thrilled to ask Burnt Friedman about the links between the projects. He and Jaki - who sadly died in 2017 - were deep thinkers on rhythm and its link with culture, and long-time experimenters. Chatting to Burnt gave me insight into their philosophy and now I can listen to this music with new perspective. I hope you enjoy the article: The Librarian
I've just published a new article on David Sylvian's song 'Wave' from 1986's 'Gone to Earth.' Surely one of his finest tracks. It's a song that was crying out for a musical voice to make sense of the arrangement - and led Sylvian to reach out to Robert Fripp for their first recording together. Thanks to a newly surfaced tape of Robert's 1985 record store performance and Q&A at Rough Trade in London, we now know exactly when the session was. Fripp looks back favourably on the track - indeed he paid it the highest accolade.. Here is the link to the article: Wave
I was fortunate to be in Norway earlier this month for the Punkt festival and saw the premiere of Yuka Fujii's film 'Like Planets'. This features photographs of David Sylvian from their time travelling in the 1980's, providing a unique insight into the experiences that shaped Sylvian's glorious trilogy of solo albums in that decade. The film is based on images in the book of the same name, with a specially commissioned soundtrack by Mark Wastell which features field recordings and poetry fragments by David Sylvian. I wrote an article on the film here: Like Planets - Nagarkot
If DS ever decided to issue "Blue of Noon" on CD I'd be all over it, but I don't think it's gonna happen
Just discovered your articles. What a great read. As a long-time Sylvian fan I enjoyed them immensely
I just published a new article on Virginia Astley and David Sylvian's duet 'Some Small Hope' which was produced by Ryuichi Sakamoto. A side-project in Sylvian's catalogue, but a delightful pop song with contrasting voices and intriguing instrumentation. Masaki Sekijima was Ryuichi's instruments assistant on the sessions and talked to me about the challenges of working with computers back in 1986 and gave an insight into the recording sessions at Wool Hall back in 1986. Here's the article - Some Small Hope Also, should anyone be interested the blog can be followed on twitter here.
Properly edited version of my previous post - apologies! I just published a new article on Virginia Astley and David Sylvian's duet 'Some Small Hope' which was produced by Ryuichi Sakamoto. A side-project in Sylvian's catalogue, but a delightful pop song with contrasting voices and intriguing instrumentation. Masaki Sekijima was Ryuichi's instruments assistant on the sessions and talked to me about the challenges of working with computers back in 1986 and gave an insight into the recording sessions at Wool Hall. Here's the article - Some Small Hope Also, should anyone be interested the blog can be followed on twitter here.
Well done for slogging away at this thread ... it's a surprise to me that I've only just discovered it today, and I found your article on “Wave” very interesting, not least because I never realised that the version on Camphor was significantly different. I suspect that it's one of those albums that I bought at the time and never listened to completely. I agree that the song as it was issued on Gone To Earth is especially magical, and I think that the final lyric meshes well with what we have in the music because I've always heard it as “waves” of atonal guitar crashing over Sylvian's voice.
Thanks for reading, I'm glad you found the thread and the site! I really like your link between the lyric and guitar sound on 'Wave'.
