Description

Singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist David Sylvian's career began with U.K. art-rockers Japan, who grew from an abrasive glam-punk outfit to a highly sophisticated group of forward-looking pop experimentalists. Following the band's breakup, Sylvian embarked on a career of solo work and collaborations with 1970s legends such as King Crimson's Robert Fripp and Can's Holger Czukay, with a broad sonic palette encompassing the influences of jazz, ambient music, folk, raga, and R&B.

Biography

b. David Batt, 23 February 1958, Beckenham, Kent, England. Sylvian's androgynous image and ethereal vocals made him a prominent figure in leading new romantic band Japan. Just before their break-up in late 1982, he branched out into a new venture recording with Ryûichi Sakamoto of the Yellow Magic Orchestra (with whom he had already collaborated on a track from Japan's Gentlemen Take Polaroids). The duo's "Bamboo House" reached number 30 in the UK and the collaboration continued the following July with "Forbidden Colours", the haunting theme to the movie Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence reaching number 16. Sylvian's own "Red Guitar" reached number 17 the following June, but he soon gained a reputation as an uncompromising artist, intent on working at his own pace and to his own agenda. Released in June 1984, the atmospheric Brilliant Trees reached the UK Top 5 and was widely acclaimed. Over two years elapsed before the double album follow-up Gone To Earth, which fared less well. Sylvian returned to the pop fringe with "Let The Happiness In", but his love of experimentation was still present, as collaborations with former Can member Holger Czukay on the ambient collections Plight & Premonition and Flux + Mutability emphasized.
Sylvian subsequently joined former Japan colleagues (minus Dean) on a 1991 reunion project under the moniker of Rain Tree Crow. Another collaboration with Sakamoto in 1992 with "Heartbeat (Tainai Kaiki II)" briefly dented the charts, after which Sylvian worked on an album and toured with Robert Fripp. After moving to the USA, Sylvian began work on his long overdue new solo album. Dead Bees On A Cake finally appeared in February 1999. An instrumental collection, Approaching Silence, appeared later in the year, and in 2000 Sylvian made available a collection of previously unreleased material on the double disc Everything And Nothing.
Even with less than first class songs, Sylvian possesses a voice so good that it flatters anything he touches. This informed his brutally stark 2003 recording, Blemish, an unsettling collection dealing with vaguely hinted at personal upheavals in the artist's life.
DISCOGRAPHY: Brilliant Trees (Virgin 1984)****, Alchemy (An Index Of Possibilities) cassette (Virgin 1985)**, Gone To Earth (Virgin 1986)***, Secrets Of The Beehive (Virgin 1987)***, with Holger Czukay Plight & Premonition (Virgin 1988)***, with Holger Czukay Flux + Mutability (Virgin 1989)***, with Russell Mills Ember Glance (Virgin 1991)***, with Robert Fripp The First Day (Virgin 1993)***, with Robert Fripp Damage (Virgin 1994)***, Dead Bees On A Cake (Virgin 1999)***, Approaching Silence (Virgin/Shakti 1999)***, Blemish (Samadhi 2003)***.
COMPILATIONS: Weatherbox 5-CD box set (Virgin 1989)***, Everything And Nothing (Virgin 2000)****, Camphor (Virgin 2002)***.
VIDEOGRAPHY: with Robert Fripp Live In Japan (VAP 1995).
BIBLIOGRAPHY: David Sylvian: 80 Days, D. Zornes, H. Sawyer and H. Powell. The Last Romantic, Martin Power.

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