David Sylvian S/D

This is gonna be chock a block with catchy tunes then...

tilbury and rowe together again. pretty excited here.

This sounds awesome - hopefully a followup to Blemish at last.

"tilbury and rowe together again. pretty excited here."

no, from what I know about these recordings, there were some made in Vienna (w/ Rowe, Fennesz, Stangl, others), some in Tokyo (w/ Otomo, Sachiko M, Toshimaru Nakamura, I think Tetuzi Akiyama?), and there must have been others made in London with Tilbury and Evan Parker and others (this is the first I'm hearing of this last part). anyway, Keith and John didn't play together, or I certainly would have heard about it.

and as this looks basically like a David and the Erstwhile All-Stars project, I'm pretty excited to hear the results. FWIW, the Tokyo and Vienna recordings were made quite some time ago, I believe, late 2005/maybe early 2006?

thanks for the info, jon. i didn't love blemish but i'm still excited to hear this.

i'm hoping it's more snow borne sorrow than blemish

just judging from the other musicians, I think it's going to be pretty new territory for him.

I heard that this will be both a CD and DVD, and that it may be out as soon as April (although that's a really quick turnaround, so let's see).

looks like I was part right:

"Manafon's release date is set for Sept 14th. Manafon will be available in two editions. A regular CD/digipak edition and a twin volume deluxe edition with CD and DVD featuring the film 'Amplified Gesture'."

http://samadhisound.com/

Sadly the title of the film makes me think of an even angrier flipping of the bird.

Wire cover story next month too, dunno who's doing it/did it.

That'll be just over ten years since dude's last cover story, then.

http://www.thewire.co.uk/images/artists/sylvian_david/COVER179.jpg

Press waffle sent out just now:

On Manafon, Sylvian pursues "a completely modern kind of chamber music. Intimate, dynamic, emotive, democratic, economical." In sessions in London, Vienna, and Tokyo, Sylvian assembled the world's leading improvisers and innovators, artists who explore free improvisation, space-specific performance, and live electronics. From Evan Parker and Keith Rowe, to Fennesz and members of Polwechsel, to Sachiko M and Otomo Yoshihide, the musicians provide both a backdrop and a counterweight to his own vocal performances - which, minus one instrumental, are nakedly the center of each piece.

Sylvian's voice has never been so dominant or so striking, and his resonant tenor and deliberate vibrato captivate the listener from the start of "Small Metal Gods." Its prominence would come off as egotistical - except that each performance is an exercise in self-exposure, and each character study is written in the third-person, to allow the maximum detachment.

"It's like a one-man monologue in which every change of light and backdrop is crucial to the carrying of the central performance. It's an ensemble work even though there is a central performance." Though the setlist is all ballads, romanticism is out, and no percussion provides a pulse. All the melody and rhythm rest in the voice. Aside from overdubs of acoustic guitar or John Tilbury's somber, Feldman-esque phrases on piano, Sylvian enhanced but did not reconfigure the improvisations, giving himself just the skeletons of songs to guide him.

When an instrument locks with the lyrics - as when Fennesz introduces a texture that clinches the disaster of "Snow White in Appalachia" - the moment is indescribable; when it dissolves, Sylvian doesn't pause. Neither a complement nor a Greek chorus, the instrumentalists maintain an ambiguous attitude to the singer, and what he's saying. When Sylvian's delivery implies sympathy or mockery on "The Greatest Living Englishman," the music is cantankerous but dry, and Otomo Yoshihide's abrupt snippets of classical vinyl may or may not share the joke.

The closing track, "Manafon," depicts the British poet R. S. Thomas. Sylvian explains that it is "a description of a man of faith, who struggles with that faith, who imposes an order on the external world in the hope of finding it internally. A man who embraces the morals and values of his faith and lives by them but who also struggles with the silence that burns inside his own heart and mind. God's silence. He's a man out of time who begins to look, on the surface, more like some tragicomic figure as time passes. While he seems to be an insufferable individual in many ways there's a quixotic element in his quest for knowledge, for upholding morals and values that even he struggles with when it comes to believing in their efficacy."

Manafon's contradictions lay at the heart of its excellence. It's driven not just by the tension between improvisation and composition, frontman and ensemble, or in Sylvian's words, "intimacy and solitude." Manafon captures the dilemma of a man who studies himself clincically, but cannot truly understand himself; who's disillusioned, but maybe laughably so. The most common sensation, which hangs in almost every note, is a feeling of suspense. The sole instrumental - to which Sylvian also contributes - sounds less like a performance, and more like a wellspring of possibilities.

The album ends simply on a phrase and a breath. But there's a happier ending in its other theme: Manafon also explores the creative process. Intuition drew Sylvian to these pieces and these players, and the surprises they bring: a cello visiting like a warm hand on a forehead, the unpredictable use of unadulterated sine waves, the brassy path of Evan Parker's soprano sax solo. Manafon has a forbidding core, but aesthetically, each piece is an engrossing discovery.

"Maybe I'm attracted to the stories of individuals who search for meaning on their own terms," says Sylvian. "But what I'm fascinated by is the devotion to a creative discipline. The meaning with which the work imbues the life regardless of its reception and, to a certain extent, its importance."

This new one's killing it. Reminds me a touch of the start to Laughing Stock in its fragmentary/rough-edged feel, but maintained and developed in different directions throughout the album, while Sylvian's always a calm center.

often he's a calm centre to generally calm songs. nice to hear that there's a bit of a rough dynamic to this one.

He's certainly been playing around more with that over this decade but this is probably his most consistent work on that front. It's not the songs are explosive -- they're understated but very unsettled.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5J2IkSNO2Bo
:O

Wow Ned, that sounds great! Can't wait.

That video alone... great, great stuff.

Looking forward to this a lot. Loved what the Polwechsel guys did with Dean Roberts (i.e. Autistic Daughters).

am i missing something? that video is just the live version of "a fire in the forest"

yes that's what i'm hearing.

psyched about this

Ah, thanks damo, didn't pick that up.

Actually I meant to post another video, but am at work. It's David talking about all the musicians he worked with for this album.

Finally something to look forward to.

I played that video and—what is it, a promo? it's hard to tell—I actually hope the album doesn't have too much of that granular, burbling Fennesz sound in it. It worked once, brilliantly, but the minute I started watching the video I caught myself thinking "that's a bit of a dated sound, eh?" Maybe I have absurdly high expectations here, but some of that melodic software improv stuff hasn't aged all that well to my ears.

Sachiko M, though, is basically the anti-Fennesz though so I'm sure it will all come out balanced. Pity Ami Yoshida—Sachiko M's old partner in the delightful Cosmos—isn't onboard. Her chirping and retching noises + Sachiko's hiss and crackle would have been a beautiful voice/electronic dual counterpoint to the Sylvian croon + the Fennesz syrup.

I'm going to go run around in the yard for a minute.

fields of salmon, that video was fanmade. No clips from the album have surfaced online as far as I know.

Search song: Burnt Friedman & Jaki Liebezeit – The Librarian (feat. David Sylvian) *aka* Nine Horses - The Librarian.

did anyone hear When Loud Weather Buffeted Naoshima from 2007? one long ambient piece made up of field recordings made at naoshima. based on the collaborators alone i'm guessing it's pretty good

gahhhh when will Manafon LEAK goddamnit :(

did anyone hear When Loud Weather Buffeted Naoshima from 2007? one long ambient piece made up of field recordings made at naoshima. based on the collaborators alone i'm guessing it's pretty good

― damo tsu tsuki (r1o natsume), Sunday, August 9, 2009 11:33 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

Love it! Haven't dound a copy of it myself, so have to do it with my illegal mp3. But it's great ~ stretching his common 'song' sound and length for an entire album. It's quite blissful.

dound=found

"Sachiko M, though, is basically the anti-Fennesz though so I'm sure it will all come out balanced. Pity Ami Yoshida—Sachiko M's old partner in the delightful Cosmos—isn't onboard. Her chirping and retching noises + Sachiko's hiss and crackle would have been a beautiful voice/electronic dual counterpoint to the Sylvian croon + the Fennesz syrup."

ha! someone should do a mashup of Ami's part of Soba to Bara with the Manafon backgrounds, Sobafon.

anyway, sadly for your plan, Sachiko and Fennesz don't overlap here. the individual personnel for each track are listed in a post at the link below, the only track Sachiko is on is the one I'm by far the most excited about, mostly for the personnel but also for the title:

the greatest living englishman (10:55)
music: akiyama/sachiko m/nakamura/yoshihide/sylvian
lyrics: sylvian
electric and acoustic guitar (left channel): tetuzi akiyama
no-input mixer: toshimaru nakamura
sine wave sampler: sachiko m.
turntables, acoustic guitar (right channel): otomo yoshihide
piano: john tilbury
vocals: david sylvian

http://www.japansylvian.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1671&start=30

that lineup is all kinds of amazing.

@ [email address removed] (r1o natsume)

Been trying to get back to you, but the ILX-mail robot continues to fail on me. Could you drop me an e-mail at [another mail removed] ?

Search song: Burnt Friedman & Jaki Liebezeit – The Librarian (feat. David Sylvian) *aka* Nine Horses - The Librarian.

I believe they're different versions, albeit not dramatically.

Sylvian's done some fantastic guest vocal appearances, search these recent ones:
Tweaker - Pure Genius
Fennesz - Transit
Blonde Redhead - Messenger
Takagi Masakatsu - Exit/Delete
Punkt - Angels
Arve Henriksen - Thermal

Also there's a recent Samadhi sampler called "The World Is Everything" with two great Sylvian tracks, "The World Is Everything" and "Sleepwalkers".

those two versions of the Librarian are actually pretty different, the one from Out in the Sticks has a much less straighforward rhythm, and the one on Nine Horses sounds more "normal". Although, the vocal track is identical in both.

world citizen is a really good track as well, although not exceptionally "challenging" like other recent sylvian songs.

http://www.thewire.co.uk/images/artists/sylvian_david/cover307.jpg

Gonna make a special point of buying the mag this month.

yeah me too - i haven't bought it for 3 years or so.

He looks like Sweeney Tood on that cover.

Todd, maybe.

or an RPG villain

yes definitely getting a sephiroth vibe from that cover. great photo

damo, saw my msg upthread? drop me a line

oh hey i just saw that thanks!

http://www.thewire.co.uk/files.php?file=1166&action=stream
small metal gods

I certainly didn't expect those harmonies at the end.

Awesome. Samples here (also awesome):

http://www.manafon.com/editions/

That deluxe edition looks beautiful, but oof, $85 + shipping!

lol thanks raffles. you're doing your best.

(am lol'ing at my situation as i have access to neither facebook, nor twitter. ah well. we'll hear it soon enough.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfiliu6-6ZA

Seems like the trailer he posted isn't up on YouTube (yet).

I’m excited about this too, though I am assuming maybe this means Sakamoto doesn’t have a lot of time left? That would be incredibly depressing.

A Xmas present from David: a Nine Horses demo from 2004

https://on.soundcloud.com/yawsmWhjyuyXqVZWA

I'm kicking myself for not relistening to Nine Horses earlier when I was revisiting his solo discography. It's far from a side project. I guess the complex genesis of the record explains why it was released under a moniker. The jazz-folk-trip-hop spectrum, the incorporation of electronic and other elements not his own, and the band feel create a wonderful balance. I love how his music breathes, how he uses trumpet, and generally his careful carving of sound that makes you think of wood, glass, water, thread and such. I also like the idea of receiving demo tapes, editing out Jaki Liebezeit, and replacing him with another drummer. Perfect for the season.

otm, do love the nine horses material. i also quote "the banality of evil" pretty often: right you are!

don't sleep on the ep of extras they did. very satisfying when you've played out the full length.

Nine Horses is basically two projects -- one with Burnt Friedman and another with Steve Jansen. And agree, it's very good -- probably his best "song"-ish material since he went in the less accessible (but amazing) Blemish/Manafon direction.

yeah i didn't properly 'receive' nine horses for quite awhile, now i really love it

Deluxe cd box set on the horizon apparently. Best news ever!

https://twitter.com/davidsylvian58/status/1615898013200965632

For those not following him... here's the text:
"the Grönland release ‘Sleepwalkers’ features the track ‘do you know me now?’ which is also the title of a Universal / samadhisound deluxe CD box set to be released later this year. more info on the latter will be announced shortly"

wonder what that box will include? I assume just the Samadhi Sound albums, I'm sure there will be a bunch of additional stuff that will make it a necessary purchase. Hope Nine Horses slips out on vinyl as part of this.

I'm sure this has been posted here somewhere in the past but... here's something to help your Sunday go down lovely. Fretless bass haters are forewarned!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JHKNFjsERE

10 CD, post Virgin Records set on the way!

https://superdeluxeedition.com/news/david-sylvian-samadhisound-2003-2014-do-you-know-me-now

Does he do anything anymore but stuff his old records in fancier and fancier boxes?

He sometimes reissues albums on vinyl with ugly new covers.

He kind of fascinates me as a person. Isn’t he really into gurus and new age stuff like Carlos Santana?

The lead track on Manofon, "Small Metal Gods", suggested that he had grown disenchanted with his spiritual practice.

if instagram is anything to go by, it looks like he and Lucrecia Dalt are in a relationship.

Lucrecia My Reflection

Had not heard of her, I must admit, but to judge by the Wiki page, she sound intersting...?

her new album ‎¡Ay! is wonderful

If things go south with her, he's got a readymade cover version at hand with Blood, Sweat and Tears' "Lucretia Mac Evil" to fit on his next version of blemish.

xpost

Cool, will check it out

i'd love it if they collaborated on some music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5vSkWXu-Qo

For those of us that don’t speak Japanese or have time to listen to 45 minutes, what is that?

It’s Sylvian on a Japanese radio show in 1984 playing some of his favourite music.

Apologies, throughout the 1980s (and perhaps after idk) Ryuichi Sakamoto had a radio show called Sound Street, this is Sylvian guesting on the show with Peter Barakan acting as a translator.

He kind of fascinates me as a person. Isn’t he really into gurus and new age stuff like Carlos Santana?

― beamish13, Thursday, June 22, 2023 5:50 PM (six months ago) bookmarkflaglink

I do spend a curious amount of time wondering what his living room looks like. (Apologies if I've mentioned this before).

probably not someone who eats cheetos on a white sofa while playing xbox but you never know

I imagine a real but somehow *arty* fire. Not clutter. A large artwork - could be a painting, maybe a photograph - that might be construed as "slightly rude" but which he explains as an appreciation of "the female form"?

A couple of years back (before Ryuichi S. passed) I said something on the occasion of his birthday about how given his current wizard look I imagined him living in snowy Japanese mountains somewhere, occasionally sending Sakamoto messages via wild foxes.

i'm sorry but i'm dying at "a real but somehow 'arty' fire"

I can't believe that there's not more speculation about Sylvian's lounge.

I’m assuming beamish meant Carlos Castaneda?? Can see Sylvian appreciating some Santana tho (and I can hear his vocal on “smooth”)

beamish was referring to Carlos Santana being a big follower of Sri Chinmoy

LOL @ Sylvian in place of Thomas on "Smooth"--it's true, the hook melody would unfortunately work for him (but only if "or else forget about it" is followed by some tasteful shred-glitching c/o add'l guest cameo by Christian Fennesz)