David Sylvian

David Sylvian 1982

David Sylvian [ ˈdeɪvɪd ˈsɪlvɪən ] (born February 23, 1958 in Beckenham , Kent ; actually: David Alan Batt ) is an English songwriter , singer , keyboardist and guitarist . He first gained public fame as a singer and songwriter for the band Japan . His subsequent solo career was influenced by genres such as jazz , avant-garde , ambient , electronic music and progressive rock .

Career

youth

Sylvian was born the son of a plasterer and a housewife. In his youth he listened to glam rock , for example David Bowie or Roxy Music .

Japan

In his youth he played with bassist Mick Karn , guitarist Rob Dean , keyboardist Richard Barbieri and his brother, drummer Steve Jansen . At first, Karn often acted as the lead singer, while Sylvian later took on this role.

In 1974 the group called itself Japan and signed a record deal with the German label Hansa Records . While the band was initially still assigned to glam rock , their style became more special over the years and could be assigned more to art rock . Because of their style of clothing, the group was later often assigned to the New Romantics movement . Japan recorded five albums between 1978 and 1981, these being released from 1980 by Virgin Records - the record company that Sylvian would be under contract for the next twenty years.

The breakup of Japan in December 1982 is justified by several interpersonal relationships. There was tension, for example, because Sylvian got closer to the photographer Yuka Fujii , Mick Karn's ex-girlfriend.

After Japan disbanded in 1983, he had a major international hit called Forbidden Colors , a vocal version of the main theme of the music composed by Ryūichi Sakamoto for the film Furyo - Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence .

First solo projects

The release of the album Brilliant Trees (1984) marks the actual beginning of his solo career. Brilliant Trees reached number four on the British album charts . Sylvian placed the conventional tracks on the front and the more experimental songs on the back of the record. On the recording, the former Japan colleagues Jansen and Barbieri and worked Holger Czukay ( Can / bass ), Ryūichi Sakamoto ( piano ) and Jon Hassell ( trumpet ) with. The latter three musicians also appeared on Sylvian's Alchemy (1985), a purely instrumental album which, through its “ Fourth World ” sounds, signaled Sylvian's intention to move further away from the mainstream .

The publication of Gone to Earth (1986) again saw the separation of lighter, sung songs and instrumental works. The separation is easily recognizable by the release of the album on two records. Robert Fripp from the band King Crimson had a strong influence on the sound of the album through his guitar interludes. In 1987 Sylvian released Secrets of the Beehive with the song "Orpheus", one of his most famous and popular songs.

Collaborations

After projects with Holger Czukay and Russell Mills , Japan was reunified once in 1991, albeit under the name Rain Tree Crow . As a result, Sylvian published the collaborations with Robert Fripp The First Day (1993) and Damage (1994), the latter a live album .

In the early 1990s, the artist Ingrid Chavez sent Sylvian a copy of her first album. Since he liked her voice, he decided to include her in a project he and Ryuichi Sakamoto had. Chavez and Sylvian then found each other and married in 1992.

Years in marriage

In the following years, Sylvian became more or less musically inactive and moved with his wife from Minnesota to Napa Valley . Chavez gave birth to two daughters during this period. The record companies were not interested in their album Little Girls With 99 Lives , on which Sylvian was also represented.

In 1999, Dead Bees on a Cake was released , the first solo project since Secrets of the Beehive twelve years earlier. The album no longer had a melancholy undertone, but reflected Sylvian's inner peace through his marriage and family.

Virgin Records decided to release a "Best-of", the two-disc Everything and Nothing (2000) and the instrumental Camphor (2002). In the light of these publications, Sylvian decided to go on a world tour, which had to be cut short in the USA due to poor ticket sales.

separation

The album Blemish (2003) was the first release on his own label Samadhi Sound , on which works by Harold Budd , for example , were also released in the following years . The album had a barren, electronic sound and largely dealt with the breakup and divorce from Ingrid Chavez.

In 2004 he sang a version of Messenger by the New York band Blonde Redhead, which appeared on 4AD as the B-side of the Blonde Redhead 7 " Equus .

Since 2005 Sylvian has been working under the name Nine Horses with his brother Steve Jansen and Burnt Friedman (real name Bernd Friedmann, born in Kassel / Germany ). The first album Snow Borne Sorrow was not only quite commercially successful, but also set completely new standards in terms of composition and production, both in the context of Sylvian's earlier work and separately from it. In the UK , the album was voted "Best Produced Album" in 2006 by a number of well-known music journalists. Nine Horses also release Samadhi Sound on Sylvian's label .

Samadhi Sound started now with the publication of the laid title as download in direct sales . There are also non-copy-protected, lossless compressed file formats and mP3 files on offer, with which David Sylvian is implicitly committed to DRM- free marketing of music.

In 2009, the album was Manafon published, which is a collaboration with improvisation artists such as Evan Parker , Keith Rowe , Christian Fennesz and Sachiko M is. Two years later, the sequel Died in the Wool appeared , which reinterprets these pieces with a string quartet under the direction of Dai Fujikura , as well as unpublished songs about Emily Dickinson .

In 2011 Sylvian and Atsushi Fukui had an installation in Kristiansand . He also announced a European tour for the following year. For health reasons this was later postponed, then finally canceled. From April to May 2012, 141 Polaroids were exhibited in Tokyo.

Discography

For publications with Japan see here .

Albums

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)		Remarks
		DE	UK
1984	Brilliant trees	-	UK4 (14 weeks) UK
1986	Gone to Earth	-	UK24 (5 weeks) UK	Double album, one of which is instrumental
1987	Secrets of the Beehive	-	UK37 (2 weeks) UK
1988	Plight and premonition	-	UK71 (1 week) UK	with Holger Czukay
1993	The First Day	-	UK21 (2 weeks) UK	with Robert Fripp
1999	Dead Bees on a Cake	DE64 (3 weeks) DE	UK31 (2 weeks) UK

More albums

• 1985: Alchemy: An Index of Possibilities (instrumental compilation)
• 1988: In Praise Of Shamans (with Holger Czukay)
• 1989: Flux and Mutability (with Holger Czukay)
• 1989: Ember Glance: The Permanence of Memory (music for multimedia installation )
• 2003: Blemish
• 2005: The Good Son vs. The Only Daughter (Remix Album)
• 2007: When Loud Weather Buffeted Naoshima
• 2009: Manafon
• 2012: Tired of hiking (with Stephan Mathieu )
• 2014: There's A Light That Enters Houses With No Other House In Sight (with Wright and Fennesz)

Live albums

• 1994: Damage: Live (with Robert Fripp)

Compilations

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChartsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)	Remarks
		UK
2000	Everything and Nothing	UK57 (2 weeks) UK
2002	Camphor	UK99 (1 week) UK	instrumental
2012	A Victim of Stars, 1982--2012	UK58 (1 week) UK	instrumental

More compilations

• 1989: Weatherbox (compilation of the first 4 albums, limited edition of 5000)
• 1999: Approaching Silence
• 2010: Sleepwalkers
• 2011: Died in the Wool - Manafon Variations

Singles

year	Title album	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChartsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes)	Remarks
		UK
1982	Bamboo Houses / Bamboo Music	UK30 (4 weeks) UK	with Ryuichi Sakamoto
1983	Forbidden Colors	UK16 (9 weeks) UK	with Ryuichi Sakamoto
1984	Red Guitar Brilliant Trees	UK17 (7 weeks) UK
	The Ink in the Well Brilliant Trees	UK36 (3 weeks) UK
	Pulling Punches Brilliant Trees	UK56 (2 weeks) UK
1985	Words With the Shaman Alchemy: An Index of Possibilities	UK72 (2 weeks) UK
1986	Taking the Veil Gone to Earth	UK53 (4 weeks) UK
	Silver Moon Gone to Earth	UK83 (2 weeks) UK
1987	Let the Happiness in Secrets of the Beehive	UK66 (2 weeks) UK
1989	Pop song	UK83 (2 weeks) UK
1992	Heartbeat (Tainai Kaiki II)	UK58 (3 weeks) UK	with Riuichi Sakamoto
1993	Jean the Birdman	UK68 (2 weeks) UK	with Robert Fripp
1999	I Surrender Dead Bees on a Cake	UK40 (2 weeks) UK

Individual evidence

1. ↑ OFFICIAL ALBUMS CHART RESULTS MATCHING: BRILLIANT TREES. July 7, 1984, accessed July 7, 2020 . 
2. ↑ Page of the Sørlandets Art Museum  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ↑ Announcement of the tour
4. ↑ Cancellation of the tour
5. ↑ Website of the "glowing enigmas" exhibition ( Memento of the original from May 30, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
6. ↑ ^{a b c} Chart sources: DE UK

Web links

• David Sylvian's website
• Nine Horses website
• Samadhi Sound website
• David Sylivan at zoolamar.com German  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )
• David Sylvian on MusicBrainz (English)
• David Sylvian in the Internet Movie Database (English)