‘the first step in a new approach’
‘This short film was shot in two days of November 1984 in and around the outskirts of Tokyo, Japan. A large part of the music was completed during that same month and recorded over a period of three days. I later updated the material in London, in an attempt to elaborate on the theme started earlier in Japan, and to further improve the quality of the soundtrack.’
David Sylvian, August 1985
‘an exciting shift’
‘One of the main influences for me is travelling. I really enjoy travelling and it stimulates the imagination,’ shared Mick Karn in a 1996 interview with Anil Prasad for his Innerviews website. ‘I think a lot of the way I write is actually to think of a place and to imagine that place, what pictures come up. It’s an old trick that we used to use a lot in Japan actually, where we would just give each other a name of a country and we would all go away and think about this country and then get together and try and write a piece.’
Continue reading “Life Without Buildings”‘words with your inner self’
Asked about the origins of his interest in shamanism in a 1986 interview, David Sylvian responded, ‘I’m not sure, I can’t really remember. I was reading a great deal on different cults and spiritual groups and so on, and the word shaman kept cropping up. And I bought one book – The Shaman Magician or something like that – and that really introduced me to that idea.’
Continue reading “Awakening (Songs from the Tree Tops)”‘a sense of fascination’
Words with the Shaman was released at the end of 1985, both as a standalone 12″ vinyl and as part of the limited-edition cassette, Alchemy – An Index of Possibilities. David Sylvian’s sleeve-note on the vinyl placed the recordings in context: ‘The compositions compiled for the E.P. were conceived as musical footnotes to some of the themes started earlier on the album Brilliant Trees, and were developed as a collaborative group effort for which I am very much indebted to all who took part.’
Continue reading “Ancient Evening – Incantation”A big, bright, colourful world
David Sylvian has spoken of a period of personal darkness that followed the completion of Secrets of Beehive. In 1988, the year following that album’s release, he embarked upon his first solo tour, In Praise of Shamans. ‘I knew I was going through some kind of change at that point, which is why I decided to do it,’ he said. ‘I thought it would provoke some kind of change in me, or maybe speed up the process. But by the end of the tour I was kind of in no man’s land. I didn’t know what I wanted anymore and…I didn’t want to be involved with music for a while. I just couldn’t face sitting down and writing.
Continue reading “Flux”
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