The voices deliver the strangest music nowadays. First we had the wonderful Scott Walker album with SunnO))) and now here is one by the great David Sylvian. Not enough suffering in his music, said the one about the other once. But here is some suffering anyway. 'There's a light...' is a collaboration with long suffering poet laureate Franz Wright. I know many fans from the first hour were appalled because it is not David reciting the words but the old man Wright. And it is poetry, not songs. What can I say? A difficult album. And that's mildly put. But we love 'difficult', don't we? Especially the last 20 minutes are very captivating... "If you liked being born, you will love dying..." Did you spot the change in tone in Franz Wright's voice towards the end of the album? The humoristic and playful is suddenly gone. A crack in his voice when he starts to sound utterly desperate and lonely. It's a breathtaking moment. The cleverness disappears. Human warmth slips in. The piece almost becomes 'emotional'.... It's the best part of the album. I thought I heard Dai Fujikura somewhere, but he is not on the album. Sylvian is not the one to sit still. He is continuously looking for new adventures and collaborations. This time it is Toshimaru Nakamura and veteran Otomo Yoshihide delivering the samples. Musically, the album even holds out without the poet's voice which comes unobtrusively in the way of the freeflowing brushes of music once in a while. I can enjoy David Sylvian's new album to a certain level, but I'm sure he has become some kind of muscian's musician. There are certain aspects of 'There's a light...' that will forever escape me. That's normal. Is it really necessary to know where every note every snippet comes from? The whole history of contemporary music that was crammed into one piece of music? I'm surely not the one looking to understand everything. BTW, I seem to be a poet's poet myself. I know all about it. The things I put into my poems will not necessarily be recognised by readers. Maybe only by connoisseurs. And then what? I don't expect anybody to fully understand what I've written. Dedicated DS fans will be chewing on this. Ha...
PS: One would hope that Scott and David will work together one day. At least here is the whimsical proof that there is a lot of suffering in David Sylvian's work anyway.
