Tag: Mark Isham

Ride

‘the centrepiece… it made sense of the whole’

In the months that followed the autumn 1987 release of David Sylvian’s Secrets of the Beehive, listeners came to recognise its restraint and sensitivity as marks of a very special album. The nine tracks from ‘September’ to ‘Waterfront’ took only around 35 minutes to experience. There was not a spare musical gesture throughout the running order, all that was present was what was necessary to give expression to the compositions that had come so naturally and unexpectedly to the songwriter as his Gone to Earth press tour had come to an end.

I think the first time I discovered that the album may not be exactly what Sylvian had envisaged was a 1988 interview with guitarist David Torn in which he discussed his involvement with Secrets... ‘He was that man that rang me,’ said Torn of first contacts, expanding on the recording at Miraval Studios in the South of France: ‘I really was left this wild card position where he didn’t know what he wanted me to do before I started reacting to the tracks. So we did a solo on ‘The Boy with the Gun’ and I played my koto guitar on ‘Maria’.

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Let the Happiness In – Gone to Earth – live

‘building a bridge into another world’

On 9 July 1987 the Penguin Cafe Orchestra performed at the Royal Festival Hall in London, a concert captured for the album When in Rome, released by E.G. Records the following year. Among the performers that night were several names familiar to followers of David Sylvian’s music. Simon Jeffes, co-founder of the group, had by this time been invited by Sylvian to contribute to sessions for the ‘Bamboo Houses’ /‘Bamboo Music’ single with Ryuichi Sakamoto, and to provide an orchestral arrangement for ‘Wave’ during its development for Gone to Earth, although ultimately Jeffes’ contributions didn’t make the final mixes for either project. Steve Nye, producer of Japan’s Tin Drum and Sylvian’s solo work throughout the ’80s, was also on stage. Nye had been one of the founder members of Penguin Cafe Orchestra back in 1973, when the line-up was a quartet, his principal contribution being piano and harmonium at the Royal Festival Hall. And finally there was Jennifer Maidman who mainly shared percussion duties with Julio Segovia that night, although she took up bass guitar for the exuberant opener, ‘Air à Danser’. Maidman’s bass propels a trio of tracks on Gone to Earth, none more so than the opening track and lead single ‘Taking the Veil’ (see here for an earlier conversation with Jennifer about that song).

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Brilliant Trees – Steel Cathedrals – live

Re-taking the stage

Live performance was something that David Sylvian confessed he didn’t really relish with Japan. The occasional highs never seemed to outweigh the constraints of the experience. ‘I don’t really like touring and repeating material over and over,’ Sylvian reflected when the subject of taking to the road was raised just after the release of his second solo album, Gone to Earth. ‘You have to be in a certain frame of mind to do it, and it’s a quite uncreative frame of mind. It’s almost like, “It’s time to take a holiday, I’ll do a tour.” I always felt that way with Japan, because once I start touring I just don’t think creatively at all. But that doesn’t mean it’s not enjoyable, it can be very enjoyable if you’ve got the right people around you.’

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When Poets Dreamed of Angels

Acts of violence

Early in 2020 Italian journalist and music critic Gabriele Ansaloni, aka Red Ronnie, invited guitarist Phil Palmer to appear on his online show. Over the course of their conversation he played Palmer a selection of vinyl featuring his contributions – just a small selection from over 500 albums on which he has appeared. Their conversation started with the story of Phil’s work with David Bowie and Iggy Pop on the latter’s album The Idiot, in particular his solos on ‘Nightclubbing’ where he was asked to reproduce the experience of walking by night down Wardour Street in London’s Chinatown and hearing the music tumbling into the streets from the various clubs as he passed.

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Pulling Punches

‘an explosion of frustration’

‘Red Guitar’ was the first song heard from Brilliant Trees, being the advance single heralding Sylvian’s debut album. But when we carefully removed the vinyl from its designer inner-sleeve for the inaugural play of a Sylvian solo LP, it was ‘Pulling Punches’ that launched the ride into the unknown. And what an explosive, energetic opener it is.

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