Born on February 23: is David Sylvian still dreaming of Japan?

The English artist was born in Beckenham in 1958, and inextricablyremains linked with his Japan band's five albums.

His real name is David Alan Batt. The androgynous-looking singer and principal composer of the English quintet is often labeled as new wave nerd. In fact, Mick Karn's rumbling bass (and a few wind instruments unusual in rock), Steve Jansen's sometimes delicate, sometimes implacable rhythm on drums, and Richard Barbieri's keyboards each contributed to a musical edifice that was sometimes abrupt, but more often than not of unspeakable beauty. Just listen to “Nightporter” on the sumptuous 1980 album “Gentleman Take Polaroids” and you'll be convinced. Seven minutes of thrills and chills...

In 1991, although made up of the same musicians, the Rain Tree Crow project marked the end of an adventure. Each of the protagonists hadn't waited for this last release as a band to begin exploring more personal territory. With a dozen or so increasingly experimental albums under his own name, David Sylvian sometimes sailed in the same waters as Japan before casting off for the unknown. Highlights include “Forbidden Colours”, his collaboration with Ryuichi Sakamoto on Nagisa Oshima's 1983 film “Goobye Mr Laurence”, in which David Bowie played his most important film role.

Always prolific and eager to collaborate, notably with guitarist Robert Fripp and krautrock pope Holger Czukay, David Sylvian nonetheless sank into the mists of a certain anonymity. One of his latest recordings, 2014's “There's A Light That Enters Houses With No Other House In Sight”, shows, surprising as it may seem, a certain second degree. In the title, at least!

(Stéphane Soupart - Tr.: MH - Photo: © Etienne Tordoir)
Photo: Davi Sylvian with Japan on stage at Aula Q, VUB, Brussels (Belgium), October 1982.