01.10.09
With his last album, “Blemish”, prominently featuring the late great experimental guitarist, Derek Bailey, former Japan vocalist, David Sylvian began a new, unexpected chapter in a fascinating, unpredictable, consistently creative 30 year career. On his latest album, Sylvian further explores the possibilities of free improvisation within the song form.
Working with some of the most respected members of the avant garde, like Evan Parker, John Tilbury, Christian Fennesz, Otomo Yoshihide and Keith Rowe, Sylvian constructs singularly strange compositions as his smooth, ever-subtle vocals glide over fairly amorphous textural beds of sound. Like Scott Walker, Sylvian has reinvented himself once again, and in the process, has produced an album of startling originality. This is quiet, difficult music, delicately textured, and exceptionally beautiful. Suffice it to say that “Manafon” is a major artistic triumph.
PAUL LEMOS
Click here for the Samadhisound reviews archive.
Website design and build: Rebels In Control, after cover art by Chris Bigg. Art direction: David Sylvian. Banner images from the Hypergraphia book.