Mata Amritanandamayi

God’s Monkey

‘the blindness, the absolute darkness’

For the music of Sylvian/Fripp there would be a move away from the vocalist’s long-standing studio partner. Steve Nye had been involved as producer, engineer or mixer from Japan’s Tin Drum, throughout Sylvian’s trio of solo albums and onto Rain Tree Crow’s eponymous release in 1991. ‘I had a desire to go into another sonic area,’ explained the singer. ‘I love the warmth and beauty of the tones that Steve gets. Steve also used to give me a lot of feedback on the way I arranged things. But as I have continued to develop, it just seemed natural to move away. We’d exhausted our relationship to some degree. We might work together again, but for now I enjoy working with different engineers and co-producers.’

The Scent of Magnolia

‘unorthodox with a lot of movement’

When David Sylvian’s career-to-date retrospective album Everything and Nothing appeared in 2000, it turned out to be a compilation with a difference. Among the familiar songs from twenty years of his musical history were some never-before-heard tracks spanning the entire period. The artist was clear, however, that these were not inferior and therefore discarded out-takes.