DAVID SYLVIAN BIOGRAPHY - ON THE PERIPHERY Only available from sylvianbiography BAMBOO SEEDS! The story of David Sylvian’s solo career is one of a voyage of musical and personal discovery that eventually broke the barriers of the conventional, pushed the boundaries of musical construction, and defined a musical niche that had hitherto remained silent. His drive post-Japan would be into areas of increased spontaneity, where he imposed himself less and less onto his music. This spontaneity was something that he had come into contact with in painting, and his career would begin to focus on — and become devoted to — an application of these techniques into his music. Much of the early part of this journey would include Ryuichi Sakamoto, and indeed it can be argued that Sylvian’s first solo excursion — and one that solidified this relationship — actually preceded the demise of Japan. At the end of July 1982, five months before the final Japan concert, but while the band were in the middle of a series of damaging wrangles, Virgin released the double A side single Bamboo Music and Bamboo Houses. This release was the result of a collaboration between Sylvian and Sakamoto. It was released while Sakamoto was still a member of the Yellow Magic Orchestra, and it represented another early Sylvian and Sakamoto musical venture, the first being the co-written composition Taking Islands in Africa from the album Gentlemen Take Polaroids released at the end 1980. Bamboo Music / Bamboo Houses was classic angular “art pop”, heavily synthesiser based, and both tracks flavoured with oriental sounding patterns. Sakamoto flew into London and spent the best part of a week with David working on the tracks, but they took a long time for Sylvian to finish once Sakamoto had left the sessions. Even with the amount of painstaking work that Sylvian devoted to the pieces, at the time he was reportedly not massively enamoured by the end results. However, over time their “importance” was acknowledged as David included them on his retrospective compilation Everything and Nothing (which he curated himself with little record label pressure), and which was not released until 2000. This album also included a couple of old Japan releases, showing that Sylvian — despite his oft stated stance that he felt no connection with band releases — still recognised their place in his career. Sylvian’s disquiet in the latter part of his career with the consistent desire to associate him with Japan (and indeed with his earlier “more accessible” solo works) seems less to be because he felt the work inferior, and more to do with something extremely revealing that he once said. “The public so often want to freeze the artist in a moment in time when they were at their peak, and they want the artist to revisit it over and over again as if it was something authentic.” (David Sylvian) The intriguing relationship between audience and composer is analysed in great detail in “On the Periphery” as are the motivations that drive Sylvian to work the way he does, and to constantly recreate himself and push new boundaries. As is revealed, in many instance these motivations are a complicated brew of not just musical but deeply personal and spiritual aspects of his life. (sylvianbiography) Here is Sylvian’s first tentative step on the 30 year plus journey of his fascinating solo career. https://youtube/watch?v=_u6bmagKNfc
Posted on: Mon, 31 Mar 2014 13:05:57 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015