David Sylvian : The Last Romantic : Adventures Of The Spirit

Darren J.N. Middleton talks to David Sylvian about the search for truth, meaning and transcendence

Born in England in 1958, David Sylvian first hit the British music scene in the late 1970s with Japan, one of several bands that defined the so-called New Romantic cultural period. He later scored a UK Top 5 hit with ‘Ghosts’, before turning solo in 1982. The last twenty years has seen him collaborate with music’s great and good – Ryuichi Sakamoto (Yellow Magic Orchestra), Holger Czukay (Can), and Robert Fripp (King Crimson) – but, to many, his own work represents his best efforts, and repays the closest attention. In the words of Martin Power, his unofficial biographer, Sylvian has crafted “some of the most touching ballads of the pop era, ballads that bring something out in the listener; at worst, sorrow, at best joy”. Far from cloyingly sentimental, Sylvian’s songs reflect a deep and abiding sense of the sacred eternally renewed in the common. And they have earned for him a reputation as an artist whose work displays rich religious resonance.

Sylvian crafts music around his most religiously existential thoughts and feelings. And inwardness is fundamental to this task, he has said, for only we can ask, Who am I? No one else can make this special journey, only the self. Along the way, Sylvian has developed this approach to his life and work by seeking out and drawing upon eclectic influences – everything from the historic Buddha to Gnostic Christianity, from the painter Frank Auerbach to the sculptor Joseph Beuys, and from the poet W. B. Yeats to the Hindu visionary Mother Meera. Without a doubt: Sylvian embodies an energetic, hybridized spirituality, and the burden of this essay is to track and note some of the major signposts on his ongoing pilgrimage.

This extensive interview was conducted by email with David Sylvian in November 2003. It is available for download as a PDF document which has been scanned for viruses. Please ensure you scan the document with your own virus software once you have downloaded it. You will need a copy of the Adobe Reader to read the PDF document. This is available for free download.