‘the first step in a new approach’
‘This short film was shot in two days of November 1984 in and around the outskirts of Tokyo, Japan. A large part of the music was completed during that same month and recorded over a period of three days. I later updated the material in London, in an attempt to elaborate on the theme started earlier in Japan, and to further improve the quality of the soundtrack.’
David Sylvian, August 1985
‘a counterpoint of timbre, of colour’
My previous conversation with Melaine Dalibert came at the culmination of his four albums on Yuko Zama’s elsewhere label. From the opening disc, Musique pour le Lever du Jour (Music for the Break of Day), released in 2018, to Night Blossoms in 2021, each instalment had a connection with David Sylvian. The sleeve art for each cd was provided by Sylvian, who also proffered production advice and project titles, a track was dedicated to him, and he contributed electronic ‘sound work’ to the tracks ‘Yin’ and ‘Yang’ on the final release in the series. (Read that interview with the full background to the elsewhere series here.)
Continue reading “Musique pour le Lever du Jour”‘excited by sound’
In 1984, the Penguin Cafe Orchestra released their album Broadcasting from Home on the Editions EG label. A familiar name listed in the accompanying sleeve-notes was that of Ryuichi Sakamoto, with a co-composition credit for the track ‘Heartwind’. The PCO’s leader, Simon Jeffes, had already enjoyed a long association with Japan by this time, his first visit having been in 1972. ‘It’s as if I discovered myself there and became more confident, musically and personally,’ he said. ‘That trip to Japan was a very formative experience which I expressed in writing. That’s how the Penguin Cafe was conceived. Really it’s a state of mind, but I started writing about this place where you would feel at home and just be yourself. You could meet other people and some kind of home music would be played by an orchestra or a band. The Penguin Cafe Orchestra is now playing that music.’
Continue reading “Bamboo Houses”‘no you to be found’
The initial session that David Sylvian and Dai Fujikura held with musicians from the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) in New York yielded material for their first-released collaboration, ‘Five Lines’, together with string parts that were intended for incorporation into Manafon but were ultimately omitted from that album’s mixes. By the time of the second session with ICE, there was an agreed vision for a project based around re-imaginings of the Manafon material, a number of the tracks with the benefit of Fujikura’s string arrangements (read more here).
Continue reading “The Last Days of December”‘something was lost somehow’
English artist Phil Collins was a nominee for the prestigious Turner Prize in 2006. The Tate Gallery website offers an insight into his work in the supporting text for his exhibit: ‘Phil Collins often operates within forms of low-budget television and reportage-style documentary to address the discrepancy between reality and its representations. In his projects, Collins creates unpredictable situations and his irreverent and intimate engagement with his subjects – a process he describes as “a cycle of no redemption” – is as important for his practice as the final presentation in the gallery.’
Continue reading “Do You Know Me Now?”
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