[ t e x t . o n l y . v e r s i o n ] [ b y . c y c l o n e . w e h n e r ]
Over the past two decades or so the British enigma David Sylvian has
recorded several downbeat albums that have provided a reflective and often
melancholy contrast to the changing times.
Eighties kids will remember that Sylvian rose to prominence as the lead
singer of the New Romantic band Japan, whose influence can still be keenly
felt in the more cutting edge side of today's electronic music. Back then
the group were best known for their image, yet albums like "Tim Drum" have
since have been re-evaluated. In retrospect it seems remarkable that the
evocative, freeform single "Ghosts" should have been a top three UK hit.
Soon after the group disbanded and these days Sylvian is not inclined to
speak about that time. He has in fact produced a rich catalogue as a solo
artist.
In a sense Sylvian's solo career started in 1983 when he collaborated with
Japanese auteur Ryuichi Sakamoto on the score to the film "Merry Christmas
Mr Lawrence". Sylvian's vocals distinguished the haunting song "Forbidden
Colours". Then came Sylvian's ambitious first solo album, "Brilliant
Trees", on which he worked with Sakamoto, Can's Holger Czukay and jazz
trumpeters Jon Hassell and Kenny Wheeler.
Sylvian also took time out to explore his interest in the visual arts,
assembling a book of Polaroid images entitled "Perspectives", which was
accompanied by a video documenting an exhibition of the photographs in
Tokyo.
Sylvian released his second solo album, "Gone To Earth", in 1985, working
with prog rock guitarists Robert Fripp and Bill Nelson. This was followed
by the personal "Secrets Of The Beehive", which was to be his last solo
project for over ten years. Since then he has focussed on collaborative
outings. One of the most notable was the Rain Tree Crow band project,
involving all the original members of Japan.
Sylvian's personal life took a turn when in 1992 he married the singer and
poet Ingrid Chavez in Minneapolis, where he lived for the ensuing four
years. They had known each other for just two-and-a-half months, working
together on Sakamoto's "Heartbeat" album. Sylvian renewed his acquaintance
with Fripp for extensive touring and the albums "The First Day" and
"Damage", the latter a live set. As things turned out, Sylvian found fresh
inspiration in these endeavours. He was also reinvigorated by his marriage
and new family life. Soon Sylvian was working on his first solo album for
the 90s, "Dead Bees On A Cake". For this Sylvian brought in friends both
old and new like -- Wheeler, Frisell, Japan's Steve Jansen (David's
brother), guitarist Marc Ribot and the British-Asian musician Talvin Singh.
CYCLONE:
Are you aware of Japan's influence on the more avant garde side of the
electronica scene at the moment?
DAVID:
No, not personally. I do realise that with an album like "Tin Drum" we had
some breakthroughs in terms of the electronics used, the sonic nature of
the record and some of the ideas regarding the arrangement of the
compositions, and so it wouldn't surprise me if some younger musicians
picked up on that and took it further.
CYCLONE:
An Australian singer, Wendy Matthews, recently covered "Ghosts". Did you
ever get to hear that?
DAVID:
No, I've never heard it, which is a shame because I really do enjoy hearing
interpretations of my work. So I would like to hear that.
CYCLONE:
You've spoken of going through a period of personal turmoil in the 10 years
between "Secrets Of The Beehive" and "Dead Bees On A Cake". What did that
involve?
DAVID:
Initially, I entered into an experience where I had no way of comprehending
of what was happening to me. I can't go into too much detail because it's
too personal, but enough to say it was debilitating in a number of ways.
The idea of working in isolation was not possible. I didn't have that
degree of concentration, so I threw myself into collaborative work in one
form or another to attempt to work my way through it. I also found that
when I was working the symptoms of what it was I was living with tended to
be diminished somewhat, so if I could keep working I was in a healthier
frame of mind, I found. And I also thought that maybe by getting involved
in collaborative work, through my response to certain provocations, I might
recognise something of what it was I was going through and there maybe
therefore a solution or resolution to the problem. At the same time I went
through analysis, I tried a variety of means of working my way through this
sort of crisis of some kind, which had stayed with me three or four years.
And I began to see light at the end of the tunnel when I entered into
working with Robert Fripp and that was about the same time I met Ingrid, my
wife. So from that point onwards things changed for me. From that time
until now I've had quite the reverse. I've had a rich, eventful, joyful
time in my life. Perhaps the happiest period in my life. So things have
turned around entirely and in a sense the album on the whole documents the
recent period in time, which, as I said, has been a really positive time.
CYCLONE:
Why did you actually reference the previous album title with this one?
DAVID:
It wasn't my intention to do so. The line 'Dead Bees On A Cake' came up
when I was writing a piece called "God Man" and it appealed to me instantly
as a possible title for the album. But I didn't understand its significance
at the time. And there was a slight reticence to return to the metaphor of
the bee. But, as the main theme for the album became more and more apparent
to me as time went on, I understood the significance of the title in
relation to them and ultimately went with it, I suppose. And I guess also
because the metaphor had changed somewhat this time around. The main themes
running through the album would be love, devotion and ultimately divine
intoxication. The ultimate goal of a spiritual journey is often described
as the death of the ego merging with the object of desire, and the bee
became a metaphor for the ego. And it was a humorous image in a sense; it
was an oblique reference to a rather mundane image, lacking in poetry
somewhat, and I liked that, it appealed to me all the more because of that,
and ultimately became so much a part of the album I couldn't separate it. I
couldn't find a more suitable title.
CYCLONE:
You've said you feel this is your most complete album to date. Why do you
feel that?
DAVID:
Just because I was able to see it through to its ultimate completion. I
brought it to the point of completion that I haven't been able to on past
projects. I had no time constraints working on this album, which allowed me
to work progressively on it until I felt I had brought it as far as I
possibly could. In the past that hasn't been the case, mainly for financial
reasons. I'd reach a certain stage in album where the budgets would run dry
and there'd be no more money forthcoming, and I'd have to wrap the project
up as it stood or rethink the project -- as was the case of "Secrets Of the
Beehive". The pivotal piece of the album is missing, it was never completed
and I had to rethink the album, restructure it, to make it work for me. I
often look back, particularly to "Beehive" and "Gone To Earth", and view
them as works that were never completed in that respect.
CYCLONE:
You've also indicated that this album grew out of writing sessions for
Ingrid, whose work I'm familiar with from when she did an album for Paisley
Park. Is that true and to what extent were those songs originally for her
project?
DAVID:
When I first moved to the States we set up a studio in the attic of our
home. We started writing together to map out the possibilities of the
future, the musical partnership, and some of the pieces I wrote with her in
mind had a kind of R&B leaning to them -- because that was an area, a
genre, of music that appealed to her as a writer. But we completed a number
of pieces together prior to our first daughter being born and that's when
the perspective changed, the focus shifted obviously. And when it came time
for me to write this album I found a number of pieces that I had written
for Ingrid that she hadn't had time to look at, hadn't had time to address,
and so I took a number of them for myself. One of those pieces became "I
Surrender", which is a pivotal piece on the album and I think influenced
subsequent writing. Another piece was "Pollen Path", strangely enough, and
"Darkest Dreaming". So these pieces were written with her in mind but
ultimately I developed them for myself. So there is a direct relation
between the work we were doing together and the work that appears on this
album.
CYCLONE:
Would you consider doing an album together? Will Ingrid do another album?
DAVID:
Oh, I hope so, this is what we are trying to work on right now. She's more
than ready to start writing again and I'm very excited about being a part
of that and producing and co-writing with her. We're waiting for the go
ahead, basically. I'm hoping we can make a start in the next couple of
months on an album for her.
CYCLONE:
Are you planning to tour on the back of this album?
DAVID:
As I indicated, I would like to get back into the studio with Ingrid, if
that's possible. And then Virgin have been asking for a compilation album
for years now and I've been putting it off. I've been thinking it may be a
good time to focus on that and just create a good, a comprehensive overview
of the work done since '82 through to the present time -- pulling material
from the solo work, the collaborative work and contributions I've made to
other projects along the way -- and then go out on the road and perform
material from "Dead Bees", from Ingrid's album and something of a
retrospective as well. That would be a very interesting and exciting tour
to undertake and it would also allow us to undertake a more extensive tour
because the family would be with us. Maybe that could happen at the
beginning of next year, all being well.
CYCLONE:
You've stayed with the one record company for a long time. Has Virgin
always been supportive of your music?
DAVID:
Yes, particularly certain people at Virgin have been very supportive --
Richard Branson's partner Simon Draper, who ran Virgin for many, many
years, was very supportive of my work and basically gave me freedoms that I
don't think many other people would have. A lot of the freedom that I have
as a musician is written into the contract and has always been there
because I can't work any other way, but Simon gave me freedoms that
surpassed that. So I had control over every aspect of the work and when he
left the company he rewrote my contract and incorporated those freedoms
into the contract so that nobody could tamper with them in any way. That
was remarkable and I'm obviously very appreciative of that and the way I've
been treated.
CYCLONE:
What made you decide to settle in America? Was it because of your marriage?
DAVID:
Yeah. I decided to leave England prior to meeting Ingrid. Partly due to the
experiences I'd been having, I wanted to make a clean break of it. I found
living [in England] overwhelming to some degree in the negative sense, and
I needed to move on, but I hadn't really found a location that I felt was
suitable. America had never really crossed my mind until I met Ingrid and
it became entirely apparent that this was where I was going to be. I made a
move to Minneapolis, which was where Ingrid was living at the time, and saw
it as something of a retreat. And it certainly was that. I was cutting a
lot of ties, social ties, connections with the industries. We had these
very long, drawn-out winters. In Minneapolis in Minnesota, it gets, like,
50 below and you don't venture out unless you truly have to. So we led a
rather insular life there and focussed entirely on the family. Our first
daughter was born there and it was wonderful to focus on her life for the
first three or four years, we were always present. A lot of the work we
did, the recording, was done at home so we were always present. And it was
wonderful that the work was born out of that environment. Initially it was
a time of recovery and then rejuvenation and then, as I said, it became a
very, very rich period in our lives. A very, very happy time.
CYCLONE:
Have you been exposed to the music scene in San Francisco, where you now
live, or do you keep to yourself?
DAVID:
I tend to keep to myself. What drew us out here was the connection with the
woman you hear on the track "Praise" (Pratah Smarami). A holy, Indian
woman, she's revered as a saint. She came to stay with us in Minneapolis
and really turned our lives around at one point. So we were given the
opportunity to come and live near her for a period time and that's what
brought us out to California. And we stayed in her company for a period of
about three or four months and then moved on. But in a sense it was too
wonderful an opportunity to turn our backs on, so we went for it. That's
what brought us out here. And so now we find ourselves living in California
and we frequently ask ourselves, 'Is this where we are going to put down
roots?,' because we've led a rather rootless existence, a transient
existence, for some time. And because we have small children we think about
putting down roots for their sake, if not our own. And so we are constantly
asking ourselves, 'Is this the place it's going to be?' We still haven't
made up our minds on that score.
CYCLONE:
The album has beautiful artwork. Were you directly involved in selecting
it? How did you get such a beautiful image?
DAVID:
Shinya Fujiwara is the artist involved in it. I met him when I selected the
photograph for the "Rain Tree Crow" album cover, for which he was the
artist. We met as a result of that and got to know each other a little. He
gave me a print of one of his drawings at one point and I fell in love with
it. It was absolutely beautiful and I discovered more of his work in some
of the books he has written. He's a travel writer as well as a novelist and
I asked him to draw something specific for this album as a result of this.
I gave him the title, he knew the background of the work, he knew the kinds
of experiences that I was having and going through and kind of incorporated
that all into the artwork. Then we got Russell Mills to design it, Anton
Corbijn to create the photographs for us, and brought it together as a nice
package. I'm very happy with it.
CYCLONE:
Your name appears in the credits of Propaganda's "A Secret Wish", which
came out on Trevor Horn's label ZTT in the mid-80s. That album has actually
been quite influential in techno circles. Do you remember working on it?
How did you get involved with that project?
DAVID: The album went through a variety of different stages. I think they recorded the album maybe two or three times and I was involved in the early stages through Paul Morley, who was married to -- I can't remember the name of the singer of the band, but he was married to her. I remember contributing to a piece called "P Machinery" (I think it was) a little melody that happens at the start of that track. I helped to arrange another piece on the album -- which I can't remember the name of, unfortunately -- but I felt the composer, the guy behind the project, was very talented. I was surprised that they didn't do more. |