David Sylvian
Words With The Shaman

"Most men are like dry leaves, that flutter and turn in the air only to fall gently to the ground. But others, a few, are like fixed stars that follow their own precise path and no wind touches them because they have within themselves their law and their path." H. Hesse "Siddhartha"

Summer afternoons before an immortal sunset seem to give meaning to life... So, is ours a life that can be enriched by what is not tangible? I believe so. I believe that every little detail, even the simplest, is perhaps the salvation of our fears and tears.
Today is also a summer day, and the silence of nature is disturbed by mystical sounds and tribal rhythms, very slow. It seems so much like the touch of S. Jansen and... the dreamlike atmospheres languidly created by a keyboard envelop our senses, in the way the sea floods, with its own ardor, the shores of beaches.

This, on the other hand, seems so much like the touch of Sylvian a sweet philosopher/poet, who with the notes of "Ancient evening" holds our spirits in oriental gardens, adorned with the splendor of evening beauty.
An Arabic flute travels in step with these atmospheres so dreamlike so wonderful, that just the thought of not being able to touch them makes you want to cry, we would love to stay next to this succession of voices and petals that dance around our bodies like sweet seductresses. A distant female voice sings words we’ve never heard, perhaps verses, just verses coupled with the purity of this melody. The evening continues to deepen in this garden of meditations; the water barely flows in a waterfall not far from our hearing...

And suddenly the tribal rhythms are now harder and faster, the touches of the keyboards are immediate until percussion and atmospheres merge with the enchanting sound of a trumpet that opens the second track "Incantation". Defined by various colors "Incantation" is indeed the enchantment that follows the meditation of "Ancient evening" rich in oriental and occidental details. Sylvian is no longer that romantic dandy nor the good pupil of Sakamoto, rather he is an educated oriental philosopher, but in "Words with the shaman" he never gets lost in baroque new age music. And this is the hallmark of our artist who, even without singing or playing an instrument virtuously, brings to life "concrete" art that is beautiful but never an end in itself.
The third and final track of the EP is "Awakening", increasingly rhythmic; percussion and trumpet (re)become oriental, and the keyboards experiment with fragile and ethnic sounds. Surely this is the culminating apotheosis of the true Sylvian a liveliness of sounds and experiments, Arab, Japanese, and ethnic traits, make "Awakening" paint a glorious Buddhist celebration consecrated in honor of their philosophy. Tibetan dances long trails of movements full of strength and inner beauty.

An album of perhaps 15 minutes for a total of three tracks, will it seem little? Listen to it and you will know the answer because it is not the quantity but the quality that counts.

"...A man suspended in the beauty of his face, as beautiful as the moon, with eyes intense with emotions and greatness... A man who will never sway like a leaf on the ground...." David Sylvian.