DAVID SYLVIAN

David Sylvian is one of the most important, prolific, progressive, and intriguing characters of the art rock scene by a large margin, even if he never reached the cult status of someone like Bowie, for example. Whether it's his work with Japan, his extensive solo career, the side ventures of Rain Tree Crow or Nine Horses, I do believe that he has left a mark on popular music, and is responsible for some of the most hauntingly beautiful pieces one could listen to. 'Brilliant Trees' is the debut solo album of Sylvian, released in June of 1984, amidst the rise and commercialization of new wave and art rock. In a concise yet straightforward manner, the album masterminded by the former Japan front man is one of the most far-reaching and eclectic offerings of the decade, displaying an exuberant array of styles and feelings in just seven songs. In my book, there is a truly progressive approach to the songwriting here, that is strongly felt on each and every track. Not to mention the great cast of characters brought in to help Sylvian in his craft, including Richard Barbieri and Steve Jansen, former Japan bandmates, Holger Czukay of Can, and Japanese instrumentalist Ryuichi Sakamoto.

Sylvian's love for the experimental or the unconventional can be sensed in the very first track on the record, the explosive and funky 'Pulling Punches'. The bass playing is criminally tasty, the melodies are gorgeous, and the vocals are excellent all throughout. 'The Ink in the Well' follows up this one, a hypnotic piece that depicts Sylvian's longings. Beautifully introduced, the more ambient sections do much favor to this track, all instruments are used intelligently and work in harmony towards the ultimate goal of creating something beautiful and profound. 'Nostalgia, perhaps the most mellow song on the album, is a representation of the more tender side of Sylvian's music. 'Red Guitar' is one of his most well-known tracks, I personally find it to be one of the most progressively influenced and player new wave hits of the 80s.

The second side of the album features three very strong compositions. 'Weathered Wall' is a fantastic song that displays a more experimental and even jazzy approach. 'Backwaters' is perhaps the most haunting song on the album, with its audacious one-minute ambient intro. For me, some of the most hellish and hypnotic synths found on an art rock album are played here. Finally, there is the title track (which clocks in at a little less than nine minutes), the absolute climax of the album. It could sound a bit paradoxical to consider such a longing, tranquil, yet menacing song a climax, but everything comes together on this one. The entire album could not really be appreciated without immersing into 'Brilliant Trees' in the very end.

I do consider this album to be entirely excellent for all the reasons mentioned above, certainly a masterpiece in the David Sylvian universe, a strong digression from the Japan sound, and a bold representation of a musical talent who seeks to go beyond the conventional and comfortable.

The seecond collaboration between Sylvian and the Krautrocker Holger Czukay confirms the format of Plight and Premonitions: a vynil with one track per side. Of course the side A is "Flux" and side B is "Mutability". There are also a couple of guests more respect to the previous album. Flux is an ambient track which, despite some dissonant sounds in the background, has a strong newage flavor. In particular the flugelhorn played by Marcus Stockhausen reminds to the trumpet of Mark ISHAM in his excellent "Tibet". David's guitar is very in background and the track is built around a lazy percussion. Background voices, speeches and what seem mantras, the African flute played by Jaki LIEBEZEIT (from CAN as Czukay) add an oriental touch to the suite. I think I can name it as "meditative music". Liebezeit is also the only guest appearing on side B.

Mutability is missing the percussive element so it's even more relaxing and meditative. Guitar softly sliding over a keyboards carpet. This track can be compared to some of the works of ALIO DIE. Apparently it goes nowhere and sounds like a fluid exercize about harmonies. A good soundtrack for uncommented images. I would use it to comment coloured landscapes, gardens, waterfalls, nature in general. Maybe somebody has done it already, who knows?

Take it if you are in a meditation mood.

The more accessible half of Holger Czukay's two ambient collaborations with David Sylvian followed closely in the footprints of its sibling album "Plight & Premonition", released one year earlier. Both recordings created a delicate, dreamlike aura bathed in lush yet understated atmospherics. But the additional support here by Czukay's bandmates from CAN turned this session into an unofficial Inner Space reunion (the finished album hit the market exactly one month before the final Can LP "Rite Time").

Like its predecessor the new album was more of a sustained mood piece than a true compositional effort, with every instrument and effect layered carefully and creatively into a fragile web of musical clairvoyance. Sylvian's primary contribution had to be the drifting heat-haze synth bed. Czukay provided the distinctive pinpoint guitar accents and his patented sampling cues: stray Middle Eastern radio signals; a snippet of Latin high mass, and so forth.

All beautiful stuff, well beyond the Peak of Normal. And the overall effect is more spellbinding than the similar abstract doodles of Sylvian's many other off-trail solo soundscapes. But because the music was more obviously grounded here than on the mirror-image "Plight" album, it lacked the same air of timeless mystery. My own assessment was in fact completely turned around after revisiting the music two decades later. This one had more of an immediate impact than its older brother, but in the long run didn't have the same legs.

Author and professor David Toop said it best, in his liner notes for the recent (and recommended) double-disc compilation of both albums in one package: the later album is "perhaps more satisfying for those who like to have a road to follow."

I'm reviewing an album 30 years after having bought it. At the end of the 80s I didn't like Japan so I don't remember how I actually went to buy an album by David Sylvian. I also knew CAN only by name, so it wasn't for Czukay for sure. I suppose that what raised my curiosity was the album having one track per side. In the same period I was into KLAUS SCHULZE's Dune, so this might have been a reason.

The album was quite a surprise. I remember to have forced myself in listening it in one shot. Japan were a new.wave electronic band, so I was expecting at least some electronic drums. Nothing at all. "Plight" is a keyboard driven soundscape with some flute-like sounds and progressions of notes that remind me to Claude DEBUSSY. It's dreamy. Listening to it I'm still able to create mental images of ice, white woods, but also elven, fairies and magical beings. This is surely influenced by the track subtitle: "spiralling of winter ghosts". With a bit of imagination it could bring the listener into space, or in the deep of the ocean.

Fans of the pink period of TANGERINE DREAM know what I mean. Some passages are darker, other are just relaxing. Some sounds have a far east flavor. This is the matter dreams are made of. An "astronaut like" voice closes the track, but I'm unable to understand the language he speaks.

"Premonition" is opened by another voice. Female and likely speaking in German. With the Vyil one doesn't realize how much the two tracks are interconnected. Effectively it could be just one single electronic suite. Probably it was conceived in this way, This track is lighter. The far east flavor is enhanced by the subtle dissonances of the untuned (synthetic) piano which adds variations to a base mainly made of major chords.

I remember walking in an airport in a morning, just after an intercontinental flight, stoned by the jet lag. Tired but relaxed with the announcements coming from the speakers like I was still sleeping. This track brings that sensations back to my mind. I hope it can give the idea. Some tracks by VANGELIS have a similar mood.

Calling it electronic ambient music is not wrong but it's reductive. I have the impression that all the dissonances, the balance between the various keyboards and electronic effects doesn't sound improvised. There must have been a lot of work at least in the engineering and mixing phases.

An excellent addition (if you like ambient music)

The first of two matching albums made by poet-composer David Sylvian and Krautrock wild-card Holger Czukay was an exercise in attentive listening, for the musicians in the recording studio and - even more so - for unwary record buyers (like me in 1988) who might have been expecting something else entirely.

Where were the comic-relief French horns? The clever cut-and-paste radio-wave surfing? Instead of another "Cool in the Pool" hodgepodge of sampled pop flotsam, we got an album of music adrift in the aether: a pair of Eno-inspired ambient dream studies, dense with random atmospheric effects but at the same time lighter and more evanescent than early-morning dew at sunrise.

At first exposure it may not resemble anything more than a soundtrack to the best night of sleep you ever had. But each of the two long tracks was meticulously crafted and full of incident, albeit presented with subtle, almost intuitive care. Melodies and rhythms exist, but were slowed down and stretched out to a point almost beyond the threshold of perception.

In retrospect the album plays better as an unbroken composition, with the tentative "Plight" (mostly assembled by Czukay in his home studio laboratory) blossoming into the even more lovely "Premonition", the latter actually recorded live without overdubs. Heard together, the two halves complete a single piece of music sounding as natural and sustaining (and as easy to ignore) as the pulse of blood moving through your heart at this exact moment.

The passage of time has only improved the experience, and added some necessary perspective. Consider this: when the album was released in 1988 (two full years after it was recorded, thanks to record company cold feet), the music charts were topped by Bon Jovi, George Michael, Van Halen, and the score to the movie "Dirty Dancing". Measured against those platinum yardsticks, the Sylvian-Czukay collaborations have to be considered minor miracles of restraint and integrity.

The jazzy piano and the very warm voice of David Sylvian open the album. "September" sounds like a night club in NewYork (or the idea that I have of that, never been there). It's few more than 1 minute but it's enough to understand that this is a very good album.

"The Boy With The Gun" persists in the same atmosphere. The jazzy impressions come from the contrabass. The period is clearly identifiable: a song from the 80s with some connections with the more artsy side of bands of that period, JAPAN included.

"Maria" is sung with baritonal voice. It's quite dark and it reminds me to Richard Wright's ZEE. Sad and atmospheric. Personally I like it a lot.

Time for major chords: "Orpheus" is made of an incredibly good sequence of non-trivial passages. The pause of silence before the instrumental section makes you wishing more, and it arrives immediately after. There's some genius in this song. It ends with 3 quick chords totally unexpected.

"The Devil's Own" proceeds with 3 minutes of mainly piano and voice. Tere's no longer a night club. This is something different, but the Howe-like guitar starts the following track. In the 80s I've paid some attention to Suzanne VEGA. Call me mad, but I think that not only this song has similarities with some of her more intimate songs, even if I don't think she has never added an instrumental part of spanish guitar in songs of this kind like the excellent "When Poets Dream Of Angels".

Contrabass, piano and jazzy atmospheres are back with "Mother and Child". One of the best album's tracks. "Let The Happines In" starts with brass and the contribution of Mark ISHAM's trumpet is huge. This is even better than the previous one. Mainly based on two chords it could remind to David BOWIE.

"Waterfront" remains on the same soundscape as before. On this track, the similarities with ZEE are evident. Of course I don't think Sylvia has taken inspiration from that album, even if I consider it underrated. This is an album from the late 80s and what Wright did in 1984 was just a shy attempt to renew his offering.

The first release of the album end here. But my Japanese reissue has the two bonus tracks below:

"Forbidden Colours" is very famous. The theme was used as movie soundtrack and was actually a big hit. Very few to say about this song: It's impossible that anybody hasn't listened to it before. Thanks to Ryuichi SAKAMOTO.

It's time to close the album. The last about three minutes are entertained by "Promise". Classical guitar and warm voice. Also this song could feature on a movie soundtrack (if it effectively hasn't, I don't know). A bit too "sweet" compared to the rest of the album, so the organ at the end brings some sadness back.

Listen to it by night, on a sofa, with a drink.

My conscience won't let me give this 4 stars despite enjoying a lot of this. We get two side long suites with David Sylvian adding guitar and keys(no vocals!) and Holger Czukay adding guitar, bass, electronics and vocals. Fellow CAN members Liebezeit(percussion, flute) and Koroli(guitar) help on track one. We also get flugelhorn on track one and samples. The thing is we get a lot of ebb and flow throughout both tracks that I like but man it's so samey, especially track two where there is virtually no change in the sound for 21 minutes. I just found myself getting annoyed long before it ends.

"Flux: A Big, Bright, Colourful World" opens with electronics and samples before percussion and manipulated vocals arrive along with spacey guitar. The vocals come and go along with some picked guitar. A pretty good sound here, kind of drifting with the spacey guitar, electronics and percussion. Some flugelhorn after 4 minutes. The flugelhorn is back after 6 minutes. Koroli before 6 1/2 minutes as his "sound" is unmistakable. He will come and go too. Some various vocal samples after 9 minutes. Flute at 10 1/2 minutes then more vocals and Koroli before 12 minutes. At 15 minutes it sort of dies but not quite as the spacey sounds start again but slower this time.

"Mutability: A New Beginning Is In The Offing" has these melancholic spacey guitar sounds along with an electronic atmosphere that pulses slowly and I'm sure there's more. It is an otherworldly sound but it continues for the whole 21 minutes.

Glad I finally got to spend some time with it and it comes across as an Electronic album more than anything else. Not a fan of the cover art either and 3 stars is all I got.

The first thing you should ask yourself if you want to know whether you'll like this album is whether you like the cover. As the cover, the music on the album is dark and mysterious with contours somewhat difficult to make out. The clearest contours come from the voice of the poet Fritz Wright, who recites some of his poetry here, which inspired this album. He has a quite expressive, calm and deep poet's voice, just right for his lyrical mood pictures. David Sylvian writes, on his website: " Franz, it has to be said, was gravely ill and stoically riding a considerable wave of heavy medication." The voice indeed sounds a bit as if he is fighting his way through the poems, which even adds weight, I'd say. Luckily we can read "Franz Wright has defied expectations and all prior prognoses and has returned from the precipice that is terminal cancer to a precarious, but passionately lived and thoroughly exploited, state of grace."

The music is a single long piece, it could be classified as somewhat minimalist experimental avantgarde music, dark, but with a very emotional , breathing character. It features a well balanced mix of freedom and recurring structures, mainly from the omnipresent pianos, never done in a formalist and rigid way. One could even call it "swinging", if this wouldn't create totally different associations. While something is always is motion, the motions are subtle, like a very gentle wind breezing through the scenery. The atmosphere doesn't change a lot through the about 64 minutes but there is enough variation to keep the attention up. Sounds are very important; the piano and guitar sound very natural and the many samples and electronics add to the "dark forest" mood; nothing of this sounds cold, intellectual and artificial.

This really belongs to the realm of contemporary art music but there it stands out for being emotional, lively and not academic. I think that this works perfectly as what it sets out to be. It is an extremely fascinating composition, but it needs listeners who are open to this kind of free atmospheric musical landscape. Don't look for songs, melodies or clear rhythms.

It is long ago now that David Sylvian started to leave conventional pop and rock music (be it progressive) and set out for less inhabited, stranger spheres. "There's a light that enters houses..." is a very mature work and very rewarding. It is a clear 5 stars for me personally and I'd call it a masterpiece indeed, but it's not "progressive rock" by any means, so the 4 stars description fits it better.

This is possibly the dreariest and least listenable of all Sylvian's releases. I don't care what any music snob says, I much prefer the last three 'Japan' albums to any solo release by David Sylvian.

I''m still a big fan of his first four solo albums, but from 'Dead Bees on a Cake' onwards he sounds like a spoiled child, crying and whining at the theft of a bag of jelly-babies that a bigger boy stole from him after stamping on his feet in a school playground.

The bloke may just have had a marriage split and is attempting to exorcise a few demons, but that's not something I want to listen to as entertainment.

There's a lot of strange glitchy and digital electronic effects on 'Blemish' and that's not necessarily a good thing. They're random and tuneless. I don't know what on earth has happened to David Sylvian during the last ten years or so. A once brilliant singer songwriter has plumbed the depths of misery and despair that no reasonable listener can tolerate or have any time for. Certainly not me, that's for sure.

'Blemish' sounds half-hearted and disinterested within itself displaying no discernible direction or raison d'etre. Derek Bailey's fractured stabs of atonal guitar do nothing to increase my interest. I've never heard an album where the lead singer sounds so dissociated and separate from proceedings.

An added star just for the fact that there's a lot happening on a subsonic level if listened to whilst wearing a good set of headphones. At the end of the day, it's instantly forgettable, poorly structured and is a mile removed from his monumental scores for 'Brilliant Trees' and 'Gone to Earth'.

You'll be hard pushed to hear such continual moaning and grumping anywhere in the Prog Archives. And you thought Leonard Cohen was a miserable git? What a dirge.

David Sylvian's style of ambient pop takes the laid-back, almost sedated tone of the slower sections of Japan's Tin Drum and strips out the orientalism (and, indeed, anything reminiscent of human cultures whatsoever) to craft something wholly unique. It is not an accessible album and at first seems cold and unappealing, and will require several listens to reveal the warmth hidden within. Many will find this worthwhile, especially if you after something calming and soft to play in the background; those who know David Sylvian as a New Romantic frontman may find themselves bored with this artier and more serious incarnation, however.