‘When I recorded Brilliant Trees, I started the album in Berlin, out of necessity, out of a low budget and it being the cheapest studio I could find, but I found that going to a strange place, meeting in a strange place — all these musicians for the first time, some of them I’d never even spoken to prior to meeting them — created a sense of adventure about the whole project,’ recalled David Sylvian. ‘I didn’t just feel it, I noticed it in the other musicians, and that they would give more of themselves in that environment rather than in their natural environment, their home town or whatever.’ (1991)
It was mid-August 1983 when the sessions began, with Steve Jansen present at the outset and then successively attending were Ryuichi Sakamoto, Wayne Braithwaite, Ronny Drayton, Richard Barbieri, Holger Czukay and Jon Hassell – an impressive line-up comprising both well-established musical counterparts and brand-new invitations. It seems to me that it would have been a daunting prospect, knowing the plans for the coming month in this first foray into working outside the context of a band. But that’s not how Sylvian looks back on it. ‘A wealth of talent passed through. The material was strong. There was a conscious departure from past work. This was far more personal. Those first steps weren’t intimidating. I felt completely at home. Outside of coming up for air, we made a cocoon of the studio where the walled city was an alien presence… possibly mood setting.’ (2022)
Continue reading “Weathered Wall”
