EVERYTHING AND NOTHING

I'm not the first one to wonder how unnoticed is this man's discography here. David Sylvian's relations to prog genre are not very notable, which partly explains it. He's done some experimental (more or less ambient) music and has collaborated with e. g. Robert Fripp; his band before going solo in '84 was an arty New Wave group JAPAN, not included in the Archives. This 2-CD compilation concentrates on his song-oriented material with many tracks (14!) unreleased before. Some Japan tracks re-worked too. This is indeed one of the finest compilations I know. Suits perfectly as an introduction but also worth having if one already had several studio albums.

Seyo's description of Sylvian's music is excellent, it's hard to add anything crucial. I'd like to use the (unofficial) term 'art pop'. It's elegant, cool, sophisticated, moody, hurriless, musically rich, with elements of various directions from jazz to ethnic music. Uptempo rock playing is mostly absent, and good so. And his voice is one of the finest in the history of pop. The impressive list of musicians includes Ryuichi Sakamoto, Richard Barbieri, Jon Hassell, Kenny Wheeler, David Torn, Mick Karn...

Highlights is rather unnecessary term to use in this brillant context, but I enjoy especially 'Riverman', 'Ride', 'Some Kind of Fool', 'Scent of Magnolia', 'Wanderlust' and 'Let The Happiness In' to name a few. (PS: David Sylvian was sometimes somewhere elected to be the most beautiful man, but don't let that fool you. On the other hand, the UN-testosteronic appearance is in sync with the elegancy and depth of his music.)