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Reading the names of those who have collaborated and are collaborating with David Sylvian is truly astonishing. Ryuichi Sakamoto, Bill Frisell, John Cage, Steve Jansen, Richard Barbieri, Mick Karn, Jon Hassell, Mark Isham, Robert Fripp, Mel Collins, Holger Czukay, and maybe I'm forgetting someone. It's enough to make you shudder with excitement.
With a career spanning over twenty years (including the beginnings with Japan), David Alan Batt, in 2000 decides that it's time to sum it all up by releasing this double anthology comprising 29 tracks, of which only 12 appear on his previous self-titled albums. The remaining 17 tracks are partly drawn from Japan's works, partly from the unwelcome reunion of the latter under the name Rain Tree Crow, as well as from various collaborations and singles scattered over these years of honorable activity and outtakes picked here and there from various recording sessions. It is not difficult to deduce, therefore, that it is a collection sui generis, a sort of self-portrait in music, looking back, gathering and reorganizing scattered notes for the joy of his fans and for those who want to try a first approach to the British dandy without necessarily delving into his voluminous complete works.
Despite the assembly, in truth, not representing the pick of his production for the reasons just stated (to say... only one track is taken from his well-acclaimed masterpiece, "Brilliant Trees"), I do not think I am exaggerating in stating that a good 60-70% of the setlist travels on levels of absolute excellence. To put it simply, the vast majority of the current music production navigates in much murkier waters compared to these two extraordinary discs.
The always warm and enveloping voice of David Sylvian accompanied by a soft kaleidoscope of sound resembles an inert tide that covers everything and provides a sense of absolute peace. A slow procession of jellyfish on a full moon night. As far as I'm concerned, he could recite the phone book, his vocal timbre is so magnetic that the charm would remain unchanged.
In the booklet accompanying the CD, there is a suggestive series of photos depicting Sylvian from the early days, with an improbable bouffant hairstyle, to the more sober shots of the new millennium where the maturity of a man who recently passed forty emerges.
In almost three years of being present on these pages, I have noticed that several users, self-proclaimed experts, only know David Sylvian by name or don't know him at all. Well! What can I say. I may seem biased, given my nickname, but the thing besides seeming to me at least criminal as well as blasphemous for musical planet knowledge, it leaves me somewhat astonished, mortified and why not, disappointed. Even more so in light of these 29 extraordinary songs.
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