David Sylvian – Manafon

Early David Sylvian's work was great. Little by little, it is clear that he began experimenting. Fine. But the problem is that experimentation may lead you nowhere. Like a dead-end street. I have just listened to his 1993 album "the 1st day" with Robert Fripp : a song such as Darshan is unbelievably repetitive, it could last for a whole CD length. And I think that too much importance has been given to Fripp's guitar play on the record. I I owned "Approaching silence" when I was younger & was very disappointed after buying it (it was a time when listening to CD's before buying was not necessarily possible). When David Sylvian casts aside experimentations, then we have the real artist we like. Such a beautiful voice !

What attracted me to David's sound was his craftsmanship of melody and poetry.
Blemish and Manafon present only a skeloton of those years.
Manafon is a fearful bloodless monotony.
Art for art's sake.

I just thought the Nine Horses outing had rid him of the pretensions of Blemish. It didn't.
If you like Eno, Zorn, Kottke and Cage, that's fine. Manafon is for you.
But musical references to the avant-garde is not what attracted me to David's sound so many years ago... [Repeat paragraph 1]

jag har lyssnat på david sedan han blev solo artist .Hans tidigare japan har jag lyssnat in då och då .David är för mig en person som skriver med hjärtat och det är i princip alltid bra låtar . JAg har ingen favorit cd alla låtar har en själ david röst är en ohörd förmåga att alltid hitta sitt uttryck. Cd manafon remixade jag på skoj jag fick till en del grejor .Nå david blit aldrig dålig han är den nu mera den bäst begåvade låt skriivaren tack från sverige ni får ta gogel translat om ni vill veta vad jag skriver .

Manafon is a brave record. If you are familiar with the work of Evan Parker, John Tilbury, Keith Rowe and AMM, Christian Fennesz, Otomo Yoshihide, John Cage and Electro-Acoustic Improvisational music in general, then you have an idea what to expect. The fact that Sylvian was able to merge that type of music with beautiful melodic and lyrical expression is stunning, and this record has some profound and very personal moments of revelation. DS stated clearly that he challenged himself with this record and that his audience would be challenged with him. Clearly, folks expecting more of the same will be disappointed - Sylvian is searching and exploring - a restless artist creating modern music, music which takes time to understand and often takes time for the rest of the world to appreciate. Debussy was called "garbage music" in his day, which seems amazing now - but anything truly at-the-edge suffers this judgement frequently. Time will show this to be a masterpiece of artistic expression. Stand outs on this record include "Small Metal Gods" and "Emily Dickinson."

If the Gone to Earth/Secrets of the beehive is the highest point of David Sylvian, then Manafon and Died in the wool is the lowest. For me, Blemish was a real disappontment but this material is a real garbage. I'm sorry, I can't use any better words for it. Reading rewievs about this album makes me think that everyone's gone mad when praising it as a masterpiece while I find it simply un-listenable.... Do we are really so different? This one is not for the soul.