Category: 2004 – other work

Wasn’t I Joe? – I’m Too Mad to Let You Know (Sign the Papers)

‘the ghosts of who we used to be’

The news that David Sylvian would be touring the Blemish album came as a complete surprise to me. Live performance had often been decried by the singer as a far less fulfilling activity than time in studio, albeit his early ’90s work with Robert Fripp hread shifted this perspective somewhat. The 2001/2002 Everything and Nothing shows were still recent memories and with the move away from a major label, the financing required to make touring viable seemed a remote possibility – it had been borderline before with losses accumulated from the US shows in 2002.

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Exit/Delete

Unlocking expression

Masakatsu Takagi first worked with David Sylvian on the Fire in the Forest tour, starting out in the UK in September 2003 and ending in Japan in spring 2004. The dates were put together based on the unexpected success of Blemish. Budgetary constraints meant that the on-stage musicians would be David Sylvian and his brother Steve Jansen only, and the nature of the material dictated that the performance would be largely laptop-based and consequently somewhat static. Another element was required for the mix, a visual component to provide added depth to the audience’s experience. Yuka Fujii became aware of Takagi’s innovative moving image work, shared samples with Sylvian, and so it was that he came to complete the on-stage trio.

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