DAVID SYLVIAN BIOGRAPHY - ON THE PERIPHERY Available at sylvianbiography NAME DROPPING. Many of David Sylvians earliest solo works had some overt and some partially hidden references to an array of artists and philosophers. This gave Sylvians audience a fascinating insight into the areas that he was pushing in order to find some solid ground emotionally and spiritually from which to push on with his musical career. Jean Cocteau rubbed shoulders with Pablo Picasso, Jean Paul Sartre with Raymond Radiguet, and Milan Kundera with Andrei Tarkovsky. Also referenced was actor Dirk Bogarde! Bogardes early career was as a light comedy actor starring in such films as Doctor in the House. However, in his later career, he single-mindedly ploughed another furrow, and took on parts he conceived to be more artistically credible, if not so universally appealing. Sylvian very obviously identified with this shift, which he deemed to be a vital move for the actor as he sought a position where his inner self could breathe and be expressed. As Sylvian embarked on his solo career after Japan split up, the parallels were obvious. After Sylvian released Brilliant Trees in the early 1980s, he embarked upon a number of projects, one of which culminated in the release of the video and score Steel Cathedrals. Bogarde famously penned a poem during the second World War with the same name. Was this a sign of an overt connection with Sylvians career? Well, it seems so, even though when asked about it in 2010, Sylvian had apparently forgotten the link. As he said and detailed in On the Periphery: “I wouldn’t have remembered an interest in Bogarde were it not for the fact that his biographer got in touch recently to ask about the obvious references. I was quite taken aback that Steel Cathedrals was a poem by Bogarde. I simply wouldn’t have known that to be the case, but I must have read it and it lodged itself in the back of my mind.” There was evidence of the fact that Bogarde was a more enduring influence on Sylvian in his early career, however, and indeed this influence linked his Japan days and his solo career. Japans hit Nightporter was named after one of Bogardes art-house period films of the same name. Bogarde — as with numerous other actors, artists, film directors, and philosophers — together provided a fertile environment for Sylvian, and their thought provoking views and attitudes gave him the stimulus he needed to inform his world view, and in many instances the confidence to take the route he did. The fact that some of these influences were also feeding into elements of Japans output is interesting. Although Sylvian sees a separation between his band work and his solo work, there were numerous overt and covert influences in the Japan days that link the bodies of work directly, all of which are analysed in On the Periphery. Bogarde on a superficial level is just one! youtube/watch?v=ZdLhhH68Hfg&list=RDYZVn9y0XfoI
Posted on: Mon, 03 Mar 2014 13:50:02 +0000
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