Ex-Japan members: David Sylvian or Mick Karn (Mick Karn RIP)

As for the larger question, whatever you think of them, one is an accomplished auteur of sorts and the other...well, he's a really great bass player. The premise of this thread is kind of silly.

OTOH -- how can you diss the Karnster? Mick Karn is one of the greatest bassists EVAH. His fretless bass work was the icing on the delicious Japan sonic cake and I feel that it is the only truly unique bass sound out there.

So HOW CAN YOU CHOOSE BETWEEN DAVID SYLVIAN AND MICK KARN?!?! Better to try to choose your favorite bite of a saucy, cheesy, ooey, gooey, spicy, yummy piece of pizza. And having Japan back for a proper reunion (including Rob Dean and not under a different moniker) would be like having a whole delicious Chicago-style deep dish pizza, i.e. HEAVEN TIMES A BILLION.

(Also: Now I'm hungry for pizza and cake.)

STEVEN Jansen? Um, STEVE Jansen, thanks. Many apologies. Am too hyped up to really do a good job with the names here.

To get the correct answer, reverse everything everyone has said on this thread.

Um, yeah, I've totally heard Rain Tree Crow. I wasn't talking about that, though. As grand as it was, it WOULD be bested by a FULL Japan reunion, including Rob Dean (because Dean wasn't in RTC) and released AS Japan. Mind you, I'm saying this because I know there's a snowman's chance in hell that that would ever happen, but... hey, you never know. But yeah, RTC were GREAT. "Every Colour You Are" is one of the best songs ever released by any individual or group associated with the band Japan IMHO.

After a Fashion is the exact point where Karn (much as most of us love his style) went JUST PLAIN TOO DAMN FAR.

This is also the point at which I realize how much of ILM is resurrecting bands/artists we've already talked about 7 billion times before. Hey, I'm not complaining, I just don't want to sound like I'm repeating myself!

Git.

Oh, you're forgetting Polytown w/ David Torn and (gulp) Terry Bozzio, a record I recall sucking pretty hard.

Er, OK. Well, Sylvian, obviously. I can't sit through a whole Mick Karn album, although the ones I've heard do have superb moments on them. I *can*, however, sit through a whole Sylvian album - and, with some of them, that's time and time again (Beehive, Brilliant Trees especially).

Both of them, however, are guilty of dreadfully losing their way at times throughout the 80s and 90s. Despite the Sylvian control tendencies, they definitely sound like a group of musicians who work best when working together (as on the sublime Rain Tree Crow album, which I thought was wonderful).

But what's with all the Rob Dean hero worship? I don't get it.

Mick Karn has been diagnosed with cancer

http://www.mickkarn.net/

Apologies, has been posted on another thread already. I hadn't found it at first. ( Fretless bass playing + Japan/Mick Karn/Percy Jones/Ippu-Do/Masami Tsuchiya/YMO/Ryuichi Sakomoto/Bill Nelson )

Mick Karn made an album with Peter Murphy, (Dali's Car) so I'm going with him.

And guess what:

http://twitter.com/petermurphyinfo/status/22551651474

Word of a fundraiser/tribute album:

http://councilpartners.com/atributetomickkarn/index.html

RIP

He was one of the best, RIP.

Aaah man. Even though everything I read about this said it was really bad I was still hoping the guy would pull through. RIP, who now is as good and distinctive a musician as Karn was? Not many.

Ah crap. So sad he lost the fight.

Can instantly recognize him in any recording he's on, and I know nothing about bass players. RIP.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhC8LnFd2LE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8WNeb_Lg9A

His one off album appearance with Gary Numan on Dance had plenty of keepers -- this one pretty much predicted Dalis Car:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5UVIiXM_HY

"visions of china" was the first thing that came to mind when i heard. RIP

Oh man, very sad about this. One of my all-time favourite bass players, such a shame he didn't pull through. RIP Mick.

so sad. F U Cancer!!!

RIP.

RIP (even though I only know his Japan stuff, never knew what was worth checking out after that)

Really sad news... Such a distinctive bass player...

RIP...

StanM - the Dalis Car album is worth a listen

actually that undersells it, it's a good album

Thank you for the tip, will listen.

In fact a lot of his later solo stuff is excellent, esp if you like noodly kinds of work.

This is devastating news for me, for many very personal reasons this man was my greatest hero and inspiration. He visited me in a vivid dream once and taught me how to find my inner creativity (srsly) and if affected me for months. I'm shattered by the loss.

That is intense, Trayce!

It was! He came up to me, in a gallery surrounded by his own sculptures, laid a hand on my head and looked me in the eye with this... energy.

Later in the dream he showed me he was able to turn into a bird. When I asked him how would I know which bird he was among all the others, when I needed him, he said "I will come and tap on the glass of your window, and you will know it is me. You'll just know".

It.... changed me. It was very weird. I'd not thought at all about him for years til that happened.

Wow.

So as you can imagine I'm deeply affected by this sad loss :( Such a brilliant man.

One could put together an excellent sampler from his solo work, but I never bought into the multi-tracked woodwinds playing lugubrious chords that he was fond of. His (like Jansen and Barbieri) drifted into the neo-prog world by the mid 90s, and the only original album from that era I really loved (I owned most) was his drum n'bass collaboration with with Yoshihiro Hanno from 1998 entitled Liquid Glass.

booooo fuk u mortality

do you mean Jaco Pastorius?

Pino is still alive, so I guess he does mean Jaco.

Blasted this really loud in the car yesterday:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8Gqqb3IPmU

Probably not his most strikingly er archetypal (?) playing, but a great number nevertheless and one of my favourites.

apart from the guy's great fretless-styings, his timing was great, he was a rock.

I remember the slating that the Dali's Car album got when it came out, oh no it's "pretentious", "arch", w/e. Took me a few years to catch up with it and realise it was great. Screw those guys, fucking yahoos.

Just heard about this, really sad news. If I ever want to hear incredible bass lines I always go for Chic or Japan.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/06/arts/music/06karn.html?_r=1&src=twrhp

I feel like this one is missing in this thread. Perhaps Mick Karn's best ever moment as an instrumentalist, at least during his Japan years:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxQoB7vEvYU

good one, Geir--you're right on there

so the second Dali's Car record is going to be released as InGladAloneness. I do not know how I feel about this, but I feel obliged to listen to it for the Karn. I just wish it weren't called InGladAloneness.

Why? Afraid it won't be a fitting finale for his career? I'm quite looking forward to it.

I love when he randomly appears in something I'm listening to, like some Bill Nelson stuff recently. Immediately recognizable.

This is a one-off track from the collaboration, reworking "Artemis" from The Waking Hour, and not AFAIK on the EP.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6mxBvPn99M

All proceeds for this and the EP go to Karn's wife and child. Wish I liked this more.

I had previously dismissed his solo debut, "Titles". No idea why because it's damn good. "Weather The Windmill" is particularly stunning.

'Tribal Dawn' is one of the finest basslines he ever composed, IMO! So uniquely Karn.

I'll rep for "Dreams Of Reason" and "Bestial Cluster" but haven't been taken with subsequent solo albums.

I often find myself going through phases where Karn's squiggly, boingy bass is all I wanna listen to.

He woulda been 61 this year.

Is there anyone going who sounds even remotely like Mick?

Many fretless players have tried, but none have come close. Karn is to bass what John Bonham is to drums - just a singular talent that can't be replicated.

I adore Mick Karn and it's ironic how his birthday is on the very month and day my dad died (Dad died on Karn's 45th birthday), and how both succumbed to cancer. As for the thread title's query: I belong to the Team Mick Karn FB group and his death hit me like a fleet of freight trucks, but I refuse to choose between him and David Sylvian. I love both of them about equally, as I do any of the former members of Japan.

I adored Blemish, after listening to it some two or three times. I think David Sylvian could release an album of him reading the phone book and I'd love it. Mmm, warm, sensuous, fluidy liquidy voice.
OTOH -- how can you diss the Karnster? Mick Karn is one of the greatest bassists EVAH. His fretless bass work was the icing on the delicious Japan sonic cake and I feel that it is the only truly unique bass sound out there.

So HOW CAN YOU CHOOSE BETWEEN DAVID SYLVIAN AND MICK KARN?!?! Better to try to choose your favorite bite of a saucy, cheesy, ooey, gooey, spicy, yummy piece of pizza. And having Japan back for a proper reunion (including Rob Dean and not under a different moniker) would be like having a whole delicious Chicago-style deep dish pizza, i.e. HEAVEN TIMES A BILLION.

― Many Coloured Halo (Dee the Lurker), Wednesday, October 13, 2004 10:59 PM (fourteen years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

LMAO, I said the exact same thing ^^ fourteen years ago! Except in a much more enthusiastic manner, as per my online personality at the time. Anyway, I had no idea that was Derek Bailey on Blemish! I'd always assumed that was Burnt Friedman or some other frequent DS collaborator. Oh wow, so I HAVE listened to something before by that guy, AND I loved it! I'm glad Julio DeSouza isn't around here anymore because that might terrify him.

I love both of them about equally, as I do any of the former members of Japan.

I'd say that Rob Dean was the most under-appreciated member of Japan. I don't know how much of that has to do with him leaving/being let go for Tin Drum (he wasn't invited back for the Rain Tree Crow project), but the guy contributed to every other Japan album and also (it's seldom pointed out) played on Gary Numan's Dance as well as Karn. I know the band are on record as saying that they had begun to feel that they didn't require his playing circa Gentlemen Take Polaroids, but if you watch the OGWT performance of 'Swing', he's contributing some neat playing that blends into the mix rather well.

Rob Dean is definitely the most accessible former member of Japan; I've seen him involved in the FB fan community and he's friends with at least one fellow member of Team Mick Karn, my friend Angie. He seems to be living a happy, satisfying life in Costa Rica these days, but I still wish he'd been involved with the Rain Tree Crow project. And I have definitely seen that performance of "Swing" and agree with you wholeheartedly about Dean's guitar playing in that.

Costa Rica, eh!? What a poor, tortured soul! :D

Is there anyone going who sounds even remotely like Mick?

*checking to see if Percy Jones is still alive*

Percy Jones was an influence on Karn's playing, true, but even Jones himself admits that Karn took those influences and created something of his own from it.

Q: I want to go in another direction, and bring up a few other names. When I think of somebody that might sound sort of similar to you, I think of Mick Karn. Do you know Mick?

Percy Jones: Yeah, I met him in Japan some years ago. He and Richard Barbieri were in Japan (the band) together. Yeah, I can hear some similarities. He even came out and said I was an influence on him, which was very flattering. But what he's done is taken something and turned it into a whole thing of his own. He's distinctive. I mean everybody takes something, influences from other people. I was influenced by Mingus and took things from him. You use other people for inspiration, and they're usually a bit older than you. You tend to go through that in your younger years. You take in all this stuff, and turn it into something that is more "you", and I think that's what he's done. I like a lot of his work, what I've heard.

There was a Japan record called "Tin Drum", which was pretty much pop music, but it was good work; different. I thought the rhythm section stuff was interesting, and Richard Barbieri's sonic approach was interesting. Very advanced at the time, which was 20 years ago. I also heard a track from one of Mick Karn's solo records, just in passing, somebody played it for me. I can't remember exactly what it was, but I liked it. I think it might've been from "Dali's Car".

Not much discussion on ILM of Richard Barbieri's solo work. I'm listening to "Things Buried" for the first time and quite like it, a bit of a merger of Rain Tree Crow instrumentals but a bit more prog at times.

I heard a track from his latest, "Under A Spell" which I'll listen to next as I heard a track on local college radio and it was great.

i like jansen / barbieri worlds in a small room a lot ... it was recorded in tokyo in the mid-80s and has that youtubecore / algo-ambient vibe that is currently popular

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dIbYcXXpnw

not familiar w/ barbieri's solo work but i enjoyed this recent vid where he demonstrates some tin drum style synth timbres on a nord lead

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uO91uLBsx5w

Pretty sure Things Buried used to be on Spotify – there are a couple of tracks from it on the Introduction release from a few years ago. I have one of his records kicking around on my iTunes but I haven’t spent too much time with it.

Barbieri is an incredible texturalist – his work in Japan, obv., but also RTC and the duos with Jansen are excellent. He has this way with evolving pads and melodic lines I find super listenable and pretty unique. You can see why folks like Porcupine Tree have come to him over the years.

As a composer I’m less sold as the solo stuff proper I’ve heard often feels a bit like slightly noodly trip hoppy prog. I will give it another shot tho.

Worlds in a Small Room manages to be intimate, unobtrusive and melodic all at the same time, the palette of sounds they use are very warm.

Agree -- that's a good'n.

(which I note that missingNO had mentioned earlier)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds8sVhxdvfA

Not a Rick Roll

Rick should be glad that Mick didn't do his crabwalk move and steal the show.

Speaking of Rick, check his first choice here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eS2sGGE_pDU