David Sylvian - Secrets of the Beehive
Written by: Moti Kupfer
Release date - 26 October 1987 (Europe and the United States)
"Music is a gateway to a person's mental state"
"...secretly we pray for rain, September's here again"
One minute and eighteen seconds (1:18) of a tiny song, "September", say more than anything about the state of David Sylvian: pensive, with a depression that keeps deepening. Sylvian drew from this clinical depression his fourth solo album (after the breakup of the band "Japan"), "Secrets of the Beehive", which was released in Europe and the United States on 26 October 1987.
David Sylvian was born David Alan Batt in Beckenham, in the county of Kent, England, in February 1958.
Sylvian grew up in Lewisham in a working-class family: his father was a plasterer and his mother a housewife, and he was the middle child, with an older sister and a younger brother.
There wasn't much to do in Lewisham, and young David used to escape into the musical world his sister brought home, and through her he was exposed to the soul music of Motown.
While attending Catford Boys' School he befriended a boy named Anthony Michaelides (later Mick Karn). Later he was given an acoustic guitar and his brother Steve a drum kit, and together with Mick Karn they began playing as a trio.
As fans of the rock band "New York Dolls", David and his brother Steve decided to adopt the surnames of two members of the group: David changed his surname to Sylvian, after Sylvain Sylvian (born Sylvain Mizrahi), and Steve changed his to Jansen, after David Johansen.
Guitarist Rob Dean and keyboardist Richard Barbieri joined later, and early on they signed a recording contract with the label "Hansa". If at first they leaned more toward glam rock, as time went by the music of "Japan" became more and more art rock, much like "Roxy Music".
Because they wore makeup as a matter of course, they were labeled at the start of the eighties as a New Romantic band, but Sylvian rejected the comparison, declaring: "For the New Romantic bands, clothing and makeup are a costume, while for us it's a way of life".
Just as "The Beatles" had Yoko Ono, "Japan" had the photographer and designer Yuka Fujii, who was Mick Karn's former girlfriend and Sylvian's partner in those years (Sylvian having stolen the girlfriend from Karn). This caused constant tension between Karn and Sylvian, and at the same time Fujii began influencing Sylvian to bring spiritual discipline into his daily routine and steered him toward new musical directions, such as jazz.
The breakup of "Japan" was a matter of time, and by the end of 1982 it was a done deal. David Sylvian set out on his solo career and began recording his debut album during 1983.
During the years of work on his solo albums he was joined by the Japanese pianist Ryuichi Sakamoto, who had already collaborated with Sylvian on the "Japan" album "Gentlemen Take Polaroids". Together they created the song "Forbidden Colours" for the soundtrack of the film Sakamoto had been commissioned to score, "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence", starring David Bowie and Tom Conti.
Sylvian wrote "Secrets of the Beehive", his fourth solo release if "Alchemy: An Index of Possibilities" is counted, in roughly two weeks after returning from a press tour promoting "Gone to Earth".
Unfortunately for Sylvian, the budget for completing the album's recordings ran out, and he was unable to finish it the way he wanted. Only on a compilation released in 2000 did the missing track, "Ride", finally come out.
"I was crushed when I couldn't finish the album because of time and budget constraints", said Sylvian, who once asked to be nothing more than "a small rock star".
Here Sylvian returned to relatively concise songs and acoustic arrangements after the instrumental experiments of "Alchemy: An Index of Possibilities" and the ambient expanses of "Gone to Earth". His collaborative albums with Holger Czukay and Robert Fripp followed later: "Plight & Premonition" in 1988 and "Flux + Mutability" in 1989 with Czukay, and "The First Day" in 1993 with Fripp. Their earlier guest appearances on his records are a separate part of that history.
It is an album with a dark, wintry atmosphere, marked by a lean acoustic sound that suits melancholy, with Ryuichi Sakamoto adding his own touch through string-laden arrangements.
The album blends jazz, avant-garde and ambient, while the players featured on it are identified with rock, Canterbury, folk and prog groups.
The clinical depression that kept growing, together with his failure to complete the recordings as he wished, led Sylvian to take a break of several years from recording solo albums after this one.
The album cover was designed by "23 Envelope", the name behind which stood graphic designer Vaughan Oliver and photographer Nigel Grierson, who in those years created sleeves for albums released on the independent label "4AD".
The cover was inspired by the work of the German artist Joseph Beuys, who in some of his pieces used a combination of dead matter such as felt and bones. Beuys's way of working was meant to lead the viewer to think about the transience of life.
For Listening: Spotify, Apple Music
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