The Devil’s Own

Gone to Earth was released in September 1986, well over two years after David Sylvian’s debut solo LP, Brilliant Trees. Customary press interviews coincided with the release of the double album and were published in September and October that year. A few months later, I was scanning the magazine racks in WH Smith at a London railway station, hungry for news of my favourite musicians, and I remember my surprise at spotting a photograph of Sylvian on the cover of Sound on Sound magazine. Sure enough, within the pages of the March 1987 edition was to be found a new interview with Sylvian undertaken by respected music journalist, Mark Prendergast.

The exchange with Sylvian looked back to Japan’s Tin Drum and then through his solo career to date with particular emphasis on the recently released double-set. As ever I enjoyed the insights into the music, but the closing comments were what floored me as the singer shared unexpected details of his next solo project.

‘I’m writing it at the moment,’ said Sylvian, ‘and I hope to start recording it soon. It will be a departure from what I’ve been doing recently in that it will be very song based – the longest track on the album will be five minutes and the rest will be between one and three minutes. For instrumentation I’ll be going back to orchestral arrangements and traditional instruments.’

Prendergast: ‘You mean like flutes, oboes, cellos and violins?’

‘Yes!’

It wasn’t particularly unusual for Sylvian to share an intention as to what his next artistic step might be, but such pronouncements were often qualified with a statement that he may in fact do none of the things just described, depending on circumstances and where his attention might be drawn. By contrast, the comments to Prendergast were extremely specific – even to the extent of track lengths and instrumentation! Having waited (what felt then like) so long for vocal album number two, it seemed there was a real prospect of a shorter interlude before the next instalment would be in our hands. This listener had been seduced by the sumptuous textures of Gone to Earth and could hardly wait to hear what might follow.

‘The emphasis here was on the lyrical content more than on previous albums,’ David told Mark Prendergast in a later conversation reflecting on the completed Secrets of the Beehive. ‘Because the material came to me so easily and had a certain strength in its simplicity, I felt it didn’t require enhancing in terms of studio atmospherics and effects. I began recording the basic tracks at Château Miraval in the South of France because of its exotic location. Like when I started Brilliant Trees in Berlin, the idea was to create a looseness among the musicians involved because everybody’s meeting in a strange place for the first time. It just opens up people a bit more.

‘David Torn, Danny Thompson, Ryuichi, and percussionist Danny Cummings came down and we built up the tracks one by one. Then when all the basic stuff was down I came back to London with Ryuichi to do the orchestral arrangements at Angel studios. Then it was off to Wisseloord in Holland to finish the overdubs and do vocals.

‘Final additions and mixing were done at the Wool Hall in Bath with Steve Nye, who’s very much into acoustic music as well as electronic music. With the orchestral ideas I had in mind, I knew Steve would be more than adequate for the job. Nowadays, a lot of engineers have no understanding of how to mic an orchestra, or acoustic instruments for that matter. But Steve has a fantastic knowledge, and because of the nature of the arrangements on Secrets Of The Beehive, I could trust him to produce and engineer it to my satisfaction.’ (1990)

All of this work in multiple locations was rapidly completed with …Beehive released into the world in October of 1987, little more than a year on from Gone to Earth.

The studio environment at Château Miraval was captured in a myriad of photographs taken by Sylvian himself and by his companion Yuka Fujii. These range from atmospheric shots of the singer in the historic rural idyll to informal pictures of the musicians enjoying one another’s company as they dine in the open air. It really was a conducive location to set the ball rolling on what many consider to be Sylvian’s finest recorded work.

Ease of composition was the catalyst for this creative burst with Sylvian regarding the music as a gift. ‘Pieces don’t always work out,’ he reflected. ‘You have to help them. But this whole album was written instinctively; it wasn’t premeditated in any way. For the first time each track was written in one sitting. Usually I carry them around for months. So it’s totally new for me. And it’s a wonderful feeling, because I know it didn’t come from me…It came through me…You just happen to be a good receptor at that time. Totally receptive to the… to the mood. And able to interpret it in the correct way.’

The photographic record of that time in the South of France includes a series of shots of Sylvian and Sakamoto at work in the studio, including the featured image for this article. The pair’s chemistry lies at the heart of Secrets of the Beehive. Where Sakamoto had previously been central to electronic sound design or keyboards, here his skill as an orchestral arranger was the key to realising the vision that Sylvian had formed for the project.

Reproduced in Sakamoto’s book, The History of Music (Vol 1), are Sylvian’s handwritten notes for the arrangements for each song on Secrets… ‘The arrangements should never sound too grand in any way,’ he writes by way of general introduction, ‘although some of the arrangements need to be dramatic in nature as in the music of J. Brel and K. Weil [sic] it should never sound lavish.’

The reference to Jacques Brel brings to mind one of his most famous songs, ‘Ne me quitte pas’, where the vocal, and hence the lyric, is unashamedly the centre of attention, with firstly piano and then sympathetic strings and woodwind providing an expansive and complimentary backdrop.

‘Ryu is the best interpreter of my ideas,’ Sylvian emphatically stated once the album was complete. Whereas some tracks were adorned with orchestra and emotive lead instruments (see ‘Let the Happiness in’), for ‘The Devil’s Own’ the guidance to Sakamoto was simply ‘woodwind – slightly germanic – not too sweet.’ The completed piece would be performed by the duo, the only addition being woodwind arranged by Ryuichi.

‘The lyrics are more important than before,’ said Sylvian. ‘Before they were like keys to help listeners into the landscape of the music, whereas these are more straightforward.’

He was specific about the development from his previous release. ‘This one isn’t as meditative as Gone To Earth, it has more to do with everyday life in the hope that people will respond. I knew the path I’d been pursuing since Brilliant Trees had been exhausted. It’d come to a conclusion of some kind or another. I knew I had to do the next thing. I didn’t know it would be this.’

The first verse paints a vivid picture that takes us to a specific location and time: we can hear the weather outside as it rattles branches against glass. It’s a physical place of isolation mirroring a fearful state of mind as the power of the elements seeks to invade the protagonist’s space:

‘The night is dark and cold
The strong winds and the rain
Crack the branches upon my window
The devil beats his drum
Casting out his spell
Dragging all his own down into hell’

Sylvian had described Brilliant Trees as an album marking his move away from traditional Christian beliefs, yet here he is just a few years later calling upon the imagery of hell and the devil to portray a dark spiritual force. I’m left pondering whether it is possible to escape the devil’s clutches – can the spell be overcome? Who are ‘his own’ – is it a matter of choice or destiny?

‘The ticking of the clock
Inexorably goes on
The howling of the stray souls of heaven
The treasures of the cove
Where the traders stored their gold
Echo voices still dead to the world’

The poetry continues and we feel the terror of the agonisingly slow passage of time, marked out like a metronome by Ryuichi’s piano chords. The attractiveness of the ‘treasures of the cove’ and the traders’ gold makes me question again – are these ill-gotten gains, representing an allure within the darkness and therefore within the devil’s way? Or are they worldly spectacles overwhelmed like all else by the eeriness of the night?

Then the mood lifts as the acoustic instruments that Sylvian had mentioned to Mark Prendergast burst into life: colour and light replacing the bleakness of the dark. Isolation overcome through companionship.

‘Underneath the vine
Shaded by the leaves
I still hold you close to me
Beneath the open stars
Beneath the pillows and the sheets
I still hold you dear to me’

I often think of this song as a precursor to ‘Darkest Dreaming’ from Dead Bees on a Cake. There is a similar dread of being left alone to face one’s darkest fears and a longing for the comfort of a partner, whether romantic or spiritual.

The final verse includes a lyric to be savoured. Even as the night still prevails there is the promise of the coming sunrise, when the darkness that precedes it ‘hides inside its own shadow’. The malign might of the shadows cowed as the relief of the day takes precedence, if only for a while.

‘The ticking of the clock
Surely sunrise won’t be long
When darkness hides inside its own shadow
The devil beats his drum
Casting out his name
Dragging all his own down into shame’

At this time Sylvian described his music as like ‘being alone in a room with yourself, or even a step worse than that. My music is introspective in a way that makes some people really nervous. The kind of people who immediately turn on a television when they are alone don’t enjoy my music – it makes them terribly uncomfortable.’

‘I hope it isn’t always described as laid-back,’ he said of his work. ‘I hope there’s always this underlying tension, doubt, nervousness in the music, because it exists within me. I find it very difficult to handle pieces of music that are purely romantic, that don’t have an underlying stress. It should come over somewhere.’

‘The Devil’s Own’ touches on a recurring theme found on Secrets of the Beehive, most explicitly on ‘Let the Happiness In’. ‘The lyrics illustrate the idea of a positive state arising out of a negative one. I have something like an inner faith which enables me to take one step back from what I’m experiencing and see it in a different light.’

Asked later about the imagery employed for this track, Sylvian explained: ‘The Christian symbols no longer have any hold on me. I could speak in the past tense but I don’t feel my interpretations of these references differ from most. The point of using them in this context is a shorthand of sorts. I don’t believe in a devil. I do believe in the force of evil, I believe in the force of love. Heaven and hell are here and now, defined by psychological states. We know what hell feels like. We experience on occasion our descent into it. Most of us are fortunate enough to re-emerge. Likewise we also experience heaven by degrees and intensity.’

Unbeknownst to the singer at the time, these songs that came so easily would presage a time of difficulty and depression. The words he had crafted became relevant to his own life in ways he could never have perceived when writing them. ‘The period following on from …Beehive was the hardest of my life. That descent into hell I spoke of. Great mental suffering…four years of darkness. This was a darkness in which, although denied light, I never lost awareness of the light that underpins all existence.’ (2004)

Going into this period Sylvian was acutely aware that his life and music were inextricably connected. As Secrets of Beehive was released he was asked if ‘assimilate’ was an appropriate verb to describe his activities as an artist? ‘That’s all my life is geared towards,’ he replied, ‘understanding what I’ve experienced in the hope that it’ll lift me a step higher towards understanding myself and the world around me.’

‘The Devil’s Own’

Ryuichi Sakamoto – piano, organ, woodwind arrangement; David Sylvian – treated piano, synths, tapes, vocal

Music and lyrics by David Sylvian. Arranged by David Sylvian.

Produced by Steve Nye, assisted by David Sylvian. From Secrets of the Beehive by David Sylvian, Virgin, 1987.

Lyrics © samadhisound publishing

All artist quotes are from interviews in 1987/1988 unless otherwise indicated. Full sources and acknowledgements for this article can be found here.

The featured image of Ryuichi Sakamoto and David Sylvian is one of a series taken at Château Miraval, copyright Yuka Fujii. More images can be found on David Sylvian’s instagram and facebook galleries, as well as in Yuka Fujii’s book, Like Planets.

Download links: ‘The Devil’s Own’ (Apple)

Physical media: Secrets of the Beehive (Amazon)

‘Perhaps because the lyrics have a higher profile this time, so do the vocals. The success of this record in artistic terms relies totally on basic composition, on the vocal and lyrical content.’ David Sylvian, 1987

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