• Webcast interview, August 30th [postponed]
On Wednesday August 30th, David will be appearing live on the Web in a special Eden video interview with distinguished writer and broadcaster Robert Sandall. You can submit your questions for David on his site, where you will also find a full and detailed tracklisting of 'Everything and Nothing'.

NEWS ^{18.August.2000}

• Single withdrawn BUT special edition album release and free promo download
Virgin decided to withdraw the single due to lack of commercial potential. Sad but true! Now the eden site announces a special edition of the upcoming album which will include the missing tracks from the singles:
"On release, a limited edition of the album will include a bonus 4-track CD which will feature lead track 'Scent of Magnolia' (a Dead Bees outtake), the previously unreleased Sylvian/Fripp track 'The Blinding Light Of Heaven', 'Scent of Magnolia' (Portobello Mix) and a 2000 version of the classic 'Brilliant Trees'. The 3.28 radio edit of 'Magnolia' will be available as a promo download from September 11th."

Will we ever get to see another Sylvian video I wonder? Also: Now eden corrected the album title to 'Everything & Nothing'.

NEWS ^{11.August.2000}

• David Sylvian in the Hotseat !
David Sylvian will undergo the grilling of the webcast interview on August 30th at 18.30 pm (BST). This is a fantastic and unique opportunity for the fans to talk to one of rock's most intelligent of forces. If you would like to ask David Sylvian a question you will be able to. More details to follow on the eden news site.

• from the eden/Virgin site
"But Everything and Nothing isn't like other artists' 'best ofs'; how could it be? Instead, this 2CD compilation serves more as a statement about the current state of Sylvian's art than as a review. Eschewing the 'archival' approach, David has placed recent songs - including many from the Bees sessions that never made it on to the album - alongside work as early as Japan's 1981 hit 'Ghosts' (here remixed and, like all the pre-84 tracks, re-vocalled). The set includes such rarities as 1989's 'Pop Song', a Secrets of the Beehive outtake, 'Ride', and the almost legendary 'lost' Japan piece 'Some Kind of Fool'."

NEWS 10.August.2000

• Everything or Something?
The official Sylvian website at eden calls the upcoming release 'Something and Nothing'. Does that make sense?

• Revised 'links' page
Visit my all new and improved Visit my all new and improved 'links' page. Should you be the owner of a Sylvian or Sylvian-related site that is not mentioned, feel free to get in touch with me at [email protected]

NEWS ^{09.August.2000}

• Release Date of 'Everything & Nothing'
According to amazon.co.uk the album will be released October 2. According to amazon.co.uk the album will be released October 2.

• Revised 'books' page
Recently re-worked my 'books' page and added some information on the Slow Fire tour book and scans from the 'First Day' tour book.

• 'Love, Devotion, Divine Intoxication'
Again I would like to make you aware of the excellent interview by Anil Prasad at innerviews.org from April 19 1999. Now also linked on my 'interviews' page.

• Eye Talk
The Californian band Eye Talk just released their new album 'This Time' which was recorded at the same studio in Napa, Synergy Recording, in which David Sylvian put together the compilation. The album is produced by Alan Clark and Dave Kent (Sylvian's sound engineer on DBOAC and the Slow Fire tour, who also built and re-built his recording studio 'atma sound' in Minneapolis). David and his manager Richard Chadwick get 'thanked' in the liner notes. When asked, Alan, a Sylvian fan himself, gave his copy of Bamboo Houses to David and Dave who wanted to re-work that song. The eleven songs on the album could be best described as American Power Pop but they also recorded a new version of that old Japan song 'Fall in Love with me' which will appear on a later release. The CD gets distributed through theorchid.com and CDNow for only $10.99. Catalogue# ETE0966. More info on the band here. Here two mp3 sound samples, one minute each, of two of the moodier songs. Please save files to your hard drive first.

Shine (mono) [468K]
Deception (mono) [469K]

NEWS ^29.July.2000

• New single 'The Scent of Magnolia'
Virgin Records will be releasing 'The Scent of Magnolia' as the first single off 'Everything and Nothing'. Tentative release date is September 18. The single comes in two parts (in the UK at least) and the tracklisting is as follows:

Part One
The Scent of Magnolia (edit)
Aparna and Nimisha (Dobro  No. 5)
Brilliant Trees (remix)

Part Two
The Scent of Magnolia (album version)
The Scent of Magnolia (alternate version)
The Blinding Light of Heaven (studio version - previously unreleased)

[Keesjan]

• Revised Sylvian biography
According to amazon.co.uk the Sylvian biography from Martin Power has been updated:
'Featuring an in-depth study of how Sylvian formed the group Japan and how the band broke-up at the height of their career, this biography features full album reviews and 16 pages of photographs. Revised and updated it also provides an overview of Sylvian's philosophical views.' The title is now 'David Sylvian'. The subtitle 'The Last Romantic' was dropped. [Gerrit]
Reportedly it now features a new chapter which includes DBOAC and the singles.

NEWS ^18.July.2000

Everything and Nothing

NEWS ^13.July.2000

I received an email from Alan Clark who had following experience to share:

"Earlier this year, I was fortunate enough to produce and record in David Sylvian/Dave Kent's studio
in California. Dave Kent is David Sylvian's engineer. Dave Kent and I became friends and we worked together on our new release "Eye Talk". Both Dave Kent and David Sylvian were very nice and we scheduled our time around their work on his new collection CD. As a Sylvian fan, I think you'll enjoy many of the tracks. I learned so much as an artist and a producer. It was refreshing to find my musical heroes to be such warm and wonderful people."

They also asked him for a copy of Bamboo Houses - does that mean we are going to expect a reworked version of that song? David also encouraged Alan to pursue his art as an independent in order to retain his own vision and artistic integrity.

NEWS ^16.Mai.2000

Tapes of the new Sylvian compilation album have been delivered

the Medium website (new URL www.mediumproductions.co.uk)
"Earlier this year Steve [Jansen] worked on three titles for the upcoming Sylvian compilation release;
'Ride', 'The Golden Way' and 'Cover Me With Flowers'. The album is now completed."
[passed along by Wolfgang Satt]

Also Keesjan van Bunningen posted the following on the Sylvian mailing list today:
"I just got word that David Sylvian has delivered the master tapes for the
upcoming 2 CD compilation to Virgin Records. It is expected to be released
somewhere in September/October this year."

NEWS ^{21.April.2000}

I wish everybody happy Easter Holidays. Since nothing's been happening over the recent weeks I decided to put up an old interview from November 1984 (I want to thank Phill for passing it along).

          read here

On a personal note I'd like to thank all the people who have signed my guestbook. Very interesting to read and very flattering also. It's fascinating to see that David's music has even reached the furthest corners of our planet; from the US to Vladivostok, from Japan to Serbia. That music has the power to cross borders which otherwise are often so hard to overcome.

NEWS ^{26.March.2000}

JAPAN compilation update by Paul Rymer [email protected]

"I have cross-posted this mail as it may interest a wider audience. Please pass this mail on to any fans or any interested parties who may be able to help.

You know the Japan compilation I've been banging on about for the last 2 years - well it's reached an impasse once more.

What the collectors and fans were hoping for was a Japan CD including both unreleased material (e.g. Some Kind Of Fool) and vinyl only material (e.g. various 7" singles). Some of us were also hoping to see a Japan CD (or 2CD) that would present a full history of the group, and be a desirable item to
place with pride alongside the Sylvian albums and suchlike. New fans (or old fans with a renewed interest) ask for such a CD as there is no way now to buy many of the hit single versions of songs. Nearly every other band has CD's like that, why not Japan?

After BMG disappointed with the poor "In Vogue", Richard Peat and myself contacted the company to see if they could do better. This discussion actually started back in 1996 in an attempt to gain a correct re-issue for the mis-pressed "In Vogue" (all copies are mono with only 1 stereo channel) -
but that's a long story (as a side note, I heard "In Vogue" was the best selling CD of the Camden
range that BMG released).

BMG (represented by Keith Munro Keith. [email protected]) eventually said that instead of re-mastering "In Vogue" they were making a new compilation CD and were open to ideas - that is when there was the business on the Assemblage site [his Japan website Assemblage] of a poll to choose tracks etc. He (after many months) told us the company wanted to release a compilation CD including all the hit singles (in the 7" versions = a few cuts new to CD, several more that were only on Jap CD) plus 6 previously unreleased numbers.

JBK and Sylvian (via Richard Chadwick) were contacted for their input (oddly, BMG preferred that Richard and I contact JBK and Sylvian, that felt strange... after all I'm just a fan with a sad website).

Allegedly JBK were considering remixing tracks if the budget could pay for their work (fair enough I think). Such money was not available unfortunately.

Richard Chadwick stated on David's behalf that he was not interested in working with BMG unless perhaps they revised their (allegedly very low) royalty rate.

From that point BMG contacted Virgin and apparently reached an agreement in principle to work together on the CD. The CD was then delayed and no further work was done partly because of personnel issues within BMG. Work resumed on the CD in January 2000.

Sadly, Virgin have informed BMG that David does not want the company to release any more Japan collections. No specific reason was given for this, so Richard Peat contacted Opium today to get David's side of the story.

Once again, the issue of the poor royalty rate from BMG was cited by Opium (understandably IMHO, given that this is the ex-members work and earnings that are concerned). The current position is, unless the royalty rate is upped in the ex-members favour, they (um, David) are unlikely to allow the
CD to go ahead.

To quote Richard Chadwick: "If they pay the band what they owe them and improve future royalty rates, we might well co-operate. Feel free to pass this info on to BMG."

I can see both sides but it's a damn shame for the fans who want the CD. To demonstrate the popularity of the group - a 10 second clip of "I Second That Emotion" on Top Ten (60's Soul TV programme) a few weeks back led to a rash of emails to me asking what the group were doing now, or where can I buy such and such a track. Sorry to moan but I have to say I'm sick to the back teeth of telling people they just can't buy certain tracks unless they get second hand vinyl, it's 2000 not 1980!

I can't see what more we can do unless somehow someone can help BMG, Virgin and David to reach a compromise."

Paul Rymer

NEWS ^{12.March.2000}

This week I wrote an email to David's manager Richard Chadwick at Opium (Arts) to ask him about progress on the rarities compilation CD David actually wanted to have released this time of year, the work on Ingrid's second solo album and the upcoming combined world tour of David and Ingrid. Here is what he had to say:

"Dear Sascha
Thank you for your email of 6 March.
David is still putting together the compilation album and Virgin are
planning to release it later this year.
As far as I'm aware, Ingrid isn't working on an album,
We are still considering a tour for David towards the end of this year but
nothing has been decided as yet.
With best wishes.
Richard Chadwick"

Thanks Richard for the update.

Now here is one of the funniest promotional items I have ever come across. This key chain is currently on auction at ebay.com. It was made for David Sylvian's new album Approaching Silence. A blue plastic key chain/pouch containing two foam earplugs (silence..get it?). Longest side is two and a half inches long. [Sorry for using scans without asking]

• Also a big thank you to all the people who have singed my guestbook over the last weeks. Very interesting to see where you guys come from. But I wonder why there aren't any girls. I always thought Sylvian would appeal to the female part of the population also. Might be that the Internet is still predominantly male.

• On popular demand here is a short abstract of the Sakamoto concert that I attended Feb. 2 at the Passionskirche (a church) in Berlin:

Ryuichi started off with a 20 minute improvisation of sound collages on two turntables. Mixing floating, oscillating sounds with the ringing of church bells and foreign chants. Very meditative and tranquil. After that it was a pure piano concert. In London there was also a string quartette which joined him on stage but in Berlin it was purely a solo performance. Ryuichi was drenched in white light and white light alone. There was no light show or stage design. Just the two pianos. One was a so called treated or prepared piano on which he performed one piece only. I can't remember the songs he played but there was a decent amount of the new stuff from his Back to the Basics CD and a lot of his many film scores, like my personal highlight of the evening "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence" as the first of three or four encores. In between songs Ryuichi was shuffling through a pile of sheets lying on the piano, as if he was looking for something, or talking to the audience. Although I must confess I hardly understood what he was saying. It could have been English. Or a mixture between English and Japanese, hard to say. The concert was sold-out and many of the listeners had to stand throughout the whole evening due to lack of seats. Nevertheless, the audience applauded franticly and made him come back several times.

• I also updated my "Books" section. You might want to check that out. Now optimized for 1024dpi resolution. here

NEWS ^{19.January.2000}

I'd like to welcome you to the new millennium, but as David already stated "it's just another day".

The brand new album by Ryuichi Sakamoto is called Cinemage and should be available from January 8 (in the US), January 24 in Germany. It features a new version of the legendary tune "Forbidden Colours" with new vocals by David Sylvian. The songs still remains as one of my all time favorite's and the melody is simply haunting. You can hear a 50 sec. excerpt from the song on the Sony classical webite:
http://www.sonyclassical.com/music/60780/

I haven't heard the complete new arrangement yet but the short clip sounds very very promising. Let's hope it's going to be a single.
Ryuichi Sakamoto is also currently on tour across Europe performing solo concerts.
Back To The Basics Tour 2000:
Di., 02.02.2000, Berlin, 20 Uhr, Passionskirche.