Blinding Light of Heaven – live

‘we couldn’t have had a wider spectrum of characteristics’

The first music that I heard performed by Michael Brook was undoubtedly the soundtrack to the 1986 film Captive, a joint project between Brook and The Edge of U2. To be specific, it was the single ‘Heroine’ that caught my attention, the theme to the film sung by a teenage Sinéad O’Connor over guitars and effects by the main protagonists with drums by Edge’s U2 bandmate Larry Mullen Jr. I played the vinyl endlessly.

How I came to be aware of this album is lost in the mists of time. I’d enjoyed the way Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois had transformed U2’s sound for The Unforgettable Fire, heading on a whim to Wembley Arena without a ticket when they toured the album and being lucky enough to obtain a ‘restricted view’ seat at the box office on the day, my vantage point high up to the side of the stage. That I couldn’t see the backdrop did not detract one bit from the experience.

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When Loud Weather Buffeted Naoshima

‘musique concrète meets Foley artist’

In a 2010 interview, David Sylvian was asked to identify how his experience of the East had influenced him as a human being. ‘I think it affected me in ways that have been so completely absorbed and assimilated that it’s hard for me to comprehend the degree to which I’ve been influenced by my engagement with Eastern culture,’ was the preface to his reply. ‘I might point to the influence of Zen Buddhism and, to a lesser extent, Shintoism and the guiding roles they’ve played in my personal evolution. The beautiful artifice of popular culture and the mutability of persona. The embrace of one’s masculinity and femininity on equal terms, without conflict.

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Ride

‘the centrepiece… it made sense of the whole’

In the months that followed the autumn 1987 release of David Sylvian’s Secrets of the Beehive, listeners came to recognise its restraint and sensitivity as marks of a very special album. The nine tracks from ‘September’ to ‘Waterfront’ took only around 35 minutes to experience. There was not a spare musical gesture throughout the running order, all that was present was what was necessary to give expression to the compositions that had come so naturally and unexpectedly to the songwriter as his Gone to Earth press tour had come to an end.

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Big Wheels in Shanty Town

‘an epic track’

‘Virgin were ecstatic when they heard the news from an equally ecstatic Richard Chadwick,’ said Mick Karn of the decision for himself and ex-Japan band-mates Sylvian, Jansen & Barbieri to come back together, ‘and within days came up with an amount for recording that made us ecstatic. None of us had ever seen such a large sum for recording before. And what’s more, once lawyers had prepared the contracts and suggested we have accountants carry out an audit on Virgin, they hastily sent us a substantial cheque each for Japan videos…

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Avalon Sutra – Perhaps

‘from the resonant heart of a soulful man’

As David Sylvian’s In Praise of Shamans tour reached the West Coast in April 1988, he was interviewed for a piece in the Los Angeles Times. It was put to him that the ‘New Age tag has cropped up frequently’ in connection with his music. ‘It’s a very easy category to throw me into,’ Sylvian observed. ‘The music generally isn’t aggressive and therefore they define it as easy-listening, and they think I could belong to that category. And also some of the philosophies of life that I speak about they think may bear some resemblance to New Age.

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