David Sylvian

After Japan disbanded in 1982, David Sylvian, the band's former frontman, pursued an expansive and unconventional path that embraced solo recordings as well as numerous intriguing partnerships and ventures into cinema, still photography, and contemporary visual art. Born David Batt in Kent, England, on February 23, 1958, Sylvian established Japan in 1974, serving as its chief vocalist and songwriter across the ensemble's eight-year run. Shortly before the group's dissolution he began collaborating with composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, issuing the single "Bamboo Houses" in 1982 and thereby initiating a durable creative alliance.

Following the 1983 release of "Forbidden Colours," another Sakamoto collaboration written for the motion picture Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence, Sylvian delivered his first solo album, Brilliant Trees, in 1984. This recording marked the initial stage in his shift from Japan's post-glam synth pop toward densely layered, poetic atmospherics and included contributions from Sakamoto, Jon Hassell, and former Can member Holger Czukay. That same year Sylvian produced his debut volume of photographs, Perspectives: Polaroids 82/84; in 1985 he issued the documentary Preparations for the Journey, shot in and around Tokyo, together with the EP Words with the Shaman.

The ambitious double album Gone to Earth, recorded with help from Robert Fripp and Bill Nelson, appeared in 1986, while 1987 brought both the acclaimed Secrets of the Beehive and the lyric anthology Trophies: The Lyrics of David Sylvian. Concurrently he began scoring Kin, a work for modern dancer Gaby Abis that premiered at London's Almeida Theatre in September; a second Abis collaboration, Don't Trash My Altar, Don't Alter My Trash, opened in November 1988. Also in 1988 Sylvian rejoined Holger Czukay for the instrumental album Plight and Premonition, and the pair reconvened the following year for Flux + Mutability. Ember Glance: The Permanence of Memory, an installation of sculpture, sound, and light devised with Russell Mills, was presented in Tokyo Bay, Shinagawa, in 1990; a year later Sylvian and the other former members of Japan, briefly reassembled as Rain Tree Crow, released a self-titled album.

In 1994 Sylvian surfaced alongside Robert Fripp for both the album The First Day and Redemption, a further sound-and-image installation shown in Japan. The exceptional Dead Bees on a Cake arrived in 1999, followed later that autumn by Approaching Silence, a set of instrumental pieces. During fall 2000 Sylvian returned with the double-disc Everything and Nothing, offering a strong overview of projects that had taken final shape only after extended periods of composition, financial resolution, and scheduling pressures. He resurfaced in 2003 with Blemish, an unsettling collection of new material featuring avant-garde guitarist Derek Bailey and electronica experimentalist Christian Fennesz. Six years elapsed before Sylvian completed a successor, Manafon, in 2009; Fennesz again participated, joined by vanguard figures Evan Parker, John Tilbury, Otomo Yoshihide, Polwechsel, and Keith Rowe.

In 2010 Sylvian's Samadhisound label issued Sleepwalkers, a 16-track survey of his 2000s collaborations, among them the Nine Horses project and World Citizen with Sakamoto, plus the new track "Five Lines," a partnership with Dai Fujikura. The following year Sylvian released Died in the Wool (MANAFON Variations), comprising reworkings rather than simple remixes of selected Manafon material together with six fresh pieces realized with Fujikura, Fennesz, producers Jan Bang and Erik Honoré, and additional contributors. Two selections set poems by Emily Dickinson, "I Should Not Dare" and "A Certain Slant of Light." The double digipack also contained the audio component of Sylvian's installation When We Return You Won’t Recognize Us. In 2012 Sylvian, Sidsel Endresen, and Arve Henriksen contributed to Jan Bang and Erik Honoré's Uncommon Deities, while the same year he and Stephan Mathieu recorded the duo album Wandermüde.

Drawn in 2011 to American poet Franz Wright's collection Kindertotenwald, Sylvian began developing related ideas on a laptop while touring with Christian Fennesz. He proposed a collaboration to Wright, who accepted. In fall 2013 Sylvian recorded Wright reading from his poetry; shortly afterward he assembled the earlier sonic sketches, newly composed elements, and those readings into an extended work assisted by Fennesz, pianist John Tilbury, Otomo Yoshihide, and Toshimaru Nakamura. The resulting piece, There's a Light That Enters Houses with No Other House in Sight, appeared on Samadhisound in fall 2014.