new introductory bit here.
This is a reviews page based on my own collection, which just keeps growing despite itself. If it isn't listed here, it's because I don't own it yet, or I haven't gotten around to it yet.
Also, bother your local "new rock" radio station and make sure they are playing "new rock" and not "Rock the Casbah," which is not new.
note: entries in red text indicate my pick for the artist's best available album. A gold numeral indicates the POPocalypse winner of the year's best album; second- and third-place winners are in blue. Green lettering indicates an obviously exploitative record company compilation without apparent artist input.
After enjoying a chart ride with Japan in the early 80s, their frontman David Sylvian walked away from the industry and pop excesses for an artistically triumphant solo career which, sadly, has yet to show even a single American chart dent.
After testing the solo waters with a pair of hit singles ("Bamboo Houses" and "Forbidden Colours"), Sylvian teamed with artists like Ryuichi Sakamoto, Holger Czukay, Mark Isham and Steve Nye for Brilliant Trees, an emotional pop rollercoaster which happens to unashamedly be my favorite album of all time. The album, which contained seven dramatic, highly emotional waves of music, went top five in 1984 and produced a pair of top 40 singles (his last ones for 15 years). This is available on CD in the US in a nifty double-package with his subsequent instrumental EP/single Words With the Shaman.
His second solo album, Gone to Earth, is a double-LP with one platter of vocal tracks and one of instrumentals. Four of those instrumentals were deleted to fit this all on one CD, but honestly, that's not the end of the world. Some of them tended to meander. The result is a more tightened and solid album with lousy packaging and some fabulous songs with guest artists Robert Fripp and Bill Nelson, including the epic "Before the Bullfight" and the emotional crash of "Wave," plus the obviously Scott Walker-inspired single "Silver Moon." Virgin began to realize that they weren't going to get any more of their teen magazine coverage as David shied away from videos and pin-up photos in favor of scoring a performance art piece for Gaby Agis, locking himself in the studio for feedback experiments with Holger Czukay, and refusing to tour. He did reteam with his former Japan bassist Mick Karn for a beautiful chart dent called "Buoy" in early 1987.
Secrets of the Beehive, which would be his last solo credited album for a dozen years, is one of the most emotionally chilling and powerful albums I've ever been privileged to hear. Working with Ryuichi Sakamoto and David Torn among others, Sylvian created the moodiest epic of his career, a dark tunnel with no light seeping through before or behind. It includes the stunning "When Poets Dreamed of Angels" and a desperate plea called "Let the Happiness In," which you won't believe was released as a single. The CD version adds a three-year old version of "Forbidden Colours" that lacks the synth washes of the original Sylvian/Sakamoto single. Not for daytime listening, this is stark poetry. Virgin was pleased that he finally agreed to tour, but he did not want to play any but a single tune from his Japan repertoire.
From there, he turned his back completely on the chart establishment and pop world for a few years. The next two albums to be released were ambient soundscapes recorded with Holger Czukay in 1986 and 1989. Their 1989 second collaboration, Flux & Mutability, is a bit more interesting thanks to the assistance of Markus Stockhausen on the first song. Consequently, while neither are really that essential for Sylvian fans, it's probably of major interest to Can fans. He did issue a condemning, vitriolic attack on the charts called "Pop Song" which made #83, and Virgin compiled his released output along with the short film soundtrack Steel Cathedrals and an excerpt from the Gaby Agis piece, Kin, in a beautiful 5-CD box set called Weatherbox.
"Pop Song" proved to be the sole vocal performance of this period. Next to be released was 1990's Ember Glance. Long out of print and darn unlikely to turn up used, this is the 35-minute soundtrack to a 1990 Japanese museum installation by Russell Mills. It's more of Sylvian's freeform ambient stuff, and packaged in a large box with a trade-paperback sized book with photos from the exhibition. By the time it came out, Sylvian was back in the studio with a reunited Japan. However, the quartet burned up their production advance from Virgin before finishing an album. Sylvian agreed to finance the rest of the work himself under the stipulation he be in charge and the "Japan" name discarded. In the end, the album was credited to the band "Rain Tree Crow" (see above) and Karn and Sylvian were no longer speaking again.
Rain Tree Crow returned Sylvian to the top 30 for the first time in five years, but he had already moved away from the project. He met a new collaborator and partner in Ingrid Chavez that year, and the duo sang on Ryuichi Sakamoto's minor hit "Heartbeat" single. In 1992, he reteamed with Robert Fripp for a series of European concerts. Subsequently entering the studio with Fripp, Trey Gunn and Jerry Marotta, the band entertained the idea of forming a new incarnation of King Crimson, but settled on crediting The First Day to David Sylvian & Robert Fripp. This is by no means a bad album, but it's certainly not as charming as David's earlier efforts. Harsh and abrasive, this has far more of Fripp's signature style than you'd think. The improvisational tone veers from discordant guitar to near free-form jazz, with David even using a megaphone on one track. It contains the astonishing single "Jean the Birdman" and much that will challenge you. Marotta was replaced by Pat Mastoletto for the successful world tour which resulted in Damage, a mostly live album. Among ten live tracks, they perform tracks from The First Day as well as a pair of tracks from earlier in David's solo career and one Rain Tree Crow number. Sadly, Fripp's "Exposure," also played on the tour, is not included. There's also a new live track called "Blinding Light of Heaven" and they're all outstanding performances. The ten live numbers are bookended with two new and beautiful studio songs.
When the tour concluded, Fripp, Gunn and Mastoletto formed one-half of the 90s King Crimson incarnation. While that band stayed extremely busy for the next five years, Sylvian retreated to California, began raising a family and found faith. There were occasional collaborations and guest vocals, a solo acoustic tour entitled "Slow Fire," and a proposed album that Ingrid would sing called Little Girls With 99 Lives, but his own career was sidelined. When he finally resurfaced, Sylvian put together Dead Bees on a Cake, one of his most ambitious albums, another minor UK hit which sold about ten copies in the States. Stylistically, it's all over the place, incorporating many musical avenues and moods. It's wonderful if uneven. Some tracks, like "I Surrender" (his first top 40 single in 15 years), "Thalheim" and "The Shining of Things," rank among his finest, but "All of My Mother's Names" is too much like the discordant Robert Fripp material to fit in here. The only real failure is "Praise," which is musically beautiful, but features unpleasant warbling from some guru named Shree Maa. Later in the year, Virgin issued Approaching Silence, a compilation of the two tracks from Ember Glance along with the 38-minute score to a similar 1994 museum piece by himself and Robert Fripp. Since it's easier to find missing Doctor Who episodes than it is to find Ember Glance, it is nice to see released in this form, with very nice packaging.
Probably realizing that Virgin's patience with him was as exhausted as a major label's could be, Sylvian finally relented to a career compilation, but again demanded full control and turned in something truly unique, which lacks both of his only top 20 solo singles. Everything & Nothing is a double-CD with 29 songs, but only 18 were generally available before this package. It also includes a new vocal performance of the Japan hit "Ghosts," two rarities from a Nicola Alesini album, the Mick Karn duet "Buoy" and seven previously unreleased tracks from various stages in his career. The album charted mildly, Virgin changed their minds about pulling the remarkable new "radio emphasis" song "The Scent of Magnolia" as a commercial single, and it was without a contract that Sylvian embarked on a well-received European tour in 2001. This time he extended his bank of Japan songs to include all of two.
DAVID SYLVIAN: Live in Theatre (Tokyo 4/12/88, Post Script Records '92)
This is a common FM broadcast of a show from the Japanese leg of the "In Praise of Shamans" tour, edited to ten tracks. Mark Isham accompanies the band, and in addition to nine songs from Syl's solo career, they also perform Mark's "The Grand Parade." Fantastic quality.
DAVID SYLVIAN & ROBERT FRIPP: The Day Before ("Italy 1992," All of Us Records)
Prior to recording the First Day LP, Sylvian, Fripp and Trey Gunn toured Europe and Japan as a three-piece with guest musicians The California Guitar Trio. This nice-quality document includes four songs that eventually made the album and two that showed up on Damage, along with the oldie "Ghosts," two other beautiful vocal tracks that were never officially released, and a handful of musical soundscapes. Watch out for the lousy packaging which was compiled by someone who wasn't familiar with Fripp's work and titles.
DAVID SYLVIAN & ROBERT FRIPP: A New Dream (Tokyo 10/26/94, Red Phantom)
Artwork aside, this is a splendid bootleg. It's the soundtrack of a home video released in Japan on laserdisc, so the sound quality is fabulous, and the performance is awesome. Worth the cash!