What do you make of this...

[baht habit]

...uh...review of Died In The Wool?
http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/2011/s11070044.htm

[Six One Cynic]

I think it is no secret that David has been and mostly is a christian, it is in all of his public works from the completely messianic (Pop Song) to the blatant and finally deadly (Small Metal Gods) - he really loves Jesus and identifies with that way of life...infact David Sylvian isn't very cryptic, is he? He's a dad who attends his daughters sports games and parent-teacher conferences, this is what really makes him happy, it is all in plain text through the generations of interviews, most available online.

I think most of DS' fans want to know him, have fantasies of being near him, because it is precisely these infuriating contradictions of his sound, a sound completely unique and endlessly repayable, and then his actual, normal lifestyle that bind us to all these questions and inquires - his anemic interviews don't help this at all, especially for fans like me who so wish to see that vulgarity, that rich sensuality that was so present in Japan right up until about 10 years ago when he started augmenting again -(the sounds of Blemish and so on)

But for all that critic made correct, he certainly couldn't help his fingers to sputter out more obnoxious, religious, jiggery pokery!

[Simonp]

I think Sylvian has made it pretty clear that his spiritual interests are in Buddhism and Hindusim. I think if there are any references to Christianity in his music, it's probably just because he likes the imagery more than anything else. Small Metal Gods to me suggests a questionning of his current spiritual leanings than a love of Jesus Christ. What I would say about him is that he is a man of contradiction. You just have to read the interviews he has done over the years for evidence of that

[Tin Bird]

I think Sylvian's placing of "gods in a ziploc bag" includes any and all. I think he is questioning the need for any religion and focusing more on himself...he has realized that to truly be happy and at peace he has to love himself and others. Yes, the answer is LOVE...finding your own way, finding it within yourself. This encompasses forgiveness...ultimately to truly love we have to forgive. I think the reviewer is infusing his own Christian viewpoint into Sylvian's work.

[Tin Bird]

I think Sylvian has made it pretty clear that his spiritual interests are in Buddhism and Hindusim. I think if there are any references to Christianity in his music, it's probably just because he likes the imagery more than anything else. Small Metal Gods to me suggests a questionning of his current spiritual leanings than a love of Jesus Christ. What I would say about him is that he is a man of contradiction. You just have to read the interviews he has done over the years for evidence of that

...and frankly, aren't we ALL men of contridictions?

[Simonp]

from a 2003 interview -

Secrets of the Beehive, your third vocal album, is also riddled with religious references. Many appear to evoke Christian symbols, ideas and themes. What does the Cross ("September") mean to you, for example, and how do you understand talk of Kingdom ("The Boy with the Gun")? Do you, personally, believe in a devil, for example, or do you deny the devil's existence ("The Devil's Own")? What place has Jesus in your spiritual journey ("Mother and Child")?

The Christian symbols no longer have any hold on me. I could speak in the past tense but I don't feel my interpretations of these references differ from most. The point of using them in this context is a short hand of sorts. I don't believe in a devil. I do believe in the force of evil, I believe in the force of love. Heaven and hell are here and now defined by psychological states. We know what hell feels like. We experience on occasion our decent into it. Most of us are fortunate enough to re-emerge. Likewise we also experience heaven by degrees and intensity.

Other recordings from the Secrets of the Beehive sessions, such as "Promise (the cult of Eurydice)" and "Ride," speak of angels, chapels, rosaries and ravaged souls. After these songs, though, I sense a paradigm shift, for you appear to leave behind the subtle Christian references, and, as we now know, you change direction and begin evoking Shiva, a member of the Hindu pantheon, and Krishna, an avatar of Vishnu, also a member of the Hindu pantheon. Spiritually speaking, did you experience a paradigm shift, or new "ashrama" (stage of life), after recording and promoting Secrets of the Beehive?

The period following on from Beehive was the hardest of my life. That decent into hell I spoke of. Great mental suffering. Yes, what felt like a monumental shift in awareness and development took place after 4 years of darkness (a darkness in which, although denied light, I never lost awareness of the light that underpins all existence). It was at this stage after numerous attempts had been made to understand the nature of the experience I was going through (including a beneficial period of psychoanalysis) that I found the first of my teachers, hence the shift in iconography which you correctly point out. Prior to this period though was the Rain Tree Crow project. This is an important document for me as it denotes the end of many intimate relationships including my association with Christianity : I touched his hand/it burned like coal/ I put paid to the devil/ and I saw the mountain fall/ Fall on".

[baht habit]

I think the reviewer is infusing his own Christian viewpoint into Sylvian's work.

I'm glad you wrote that, for I agree completely. And it could also be pointed out that the art is not actually Sylvian's work at all...and yet in that 'review', a great deal of emphasis is placed on the artwork of Bolster, isn't it?

I think it is no secret that David has been and mostly is a christian, it is in all of his public works from the completely messianic (Pop Song) to the blatant and finally deadly (Small Metal Gods) - he really loves Jesus and identifies with that way of life...infact David Sylvian isn't very cryptic, is he? He's a dad who attends his daughters sports games and parent-teacher conferences, this is what really makes him happy, it is all in plain text through the generations of interviews, most available online.

I don't quite comprehend any correlation between the conclusion that ''he really loves Jesus and identifies with that way of life'' and Sylvian having been a nurturing father to the best of his ability. Are you making the claim that being attentive and always caring for one's child would not come naturally if one is not a christian?


As Simon found a pertinent interview for this discussion, I also wanted to dig up a few quotes from a more recent interview which was appropriately titled Age Of Enlightenment:
"There is no Maker, just inexhaustible indifference/
And there's comfort in that so you feel unafraid."
So what's being revealed? One comes up against a crisis in faith, a mourning for life as lived and its limits. It's especially striking in that previously quoted line from "Snow White in Appalachia" about the absence of a "Maker".


"I'm not afraid of complete annihilation," Sylvian says. "I don't have a problem with this life being all there is, that things come to a full stop at the end of a lifetime. In fact, I find it quite comforting to think along those lines. I find it a beautiful thought that life can go on, but there's no knowledge of what that life will consist of. Does the suffering of this life also go on into the next, as well as the joys?


"Now my brother, who's an atheist, finds that quite troubling, so we're kind of at odds with each other. He would love to believe that life goes on. He loves life so much he wishes it were eternal."

I've always looked upon the lure of some sort of eternal life as the most comforting and appealing aspect for members of the christian cult. Sylvian's words read like that of a rationalist, rather than a christian.

[Tin Bird]

I've always looked upon the lure of some sort of eternal life as the most comforting and appealing aspect for members of the christian cult. Sylvian's words read like that of a rationalist, rather than a christian.[/quote]

I couldn't agree more. Obviously we are drifting into the dangerous territory of faith and religion here and I always want to be careful that I don't step too much on other's toes. That said, most religion that I've come across, esp. the Christian faith seems founded on the idea that somehow the universe revolves around me, I'm special, and I'm going to live forever. I think it was the late comedian George Carlin that referred to the human race as "apes with delusions of grandeur". I always thought that was amusing.
I could go on...a close person to me had a major "born again" phase years ago and to talk with this person about what they believed, how it affected them..the fear, the need for certainty, the constant praying to somehow "earn" salvation...frankly it breaks my heart and just reinforces for me how I do not believe that there is an entity up in the sky somewhere keeping track of my every move and thought, jotting it down to review later, and plans to send me to a flaming lake of hellfire if I do bad things. Anyway, moving on....