JapanSylvian.com

Currently I'm reading "Facing The Other Way - The Story Of 4AD" bij Martin Aston. It appears that while preparing the second album of the project This Mortal Coil producer and label-owner Ivo Watts-Russell had asked three iconic singers to perform on it: Scott Walker, Robert Wyatt and ... David Sylvian! Wyatt was the only one who gave a response ("No"), but it's interesting to fantasize on which track of "Filigree & Shadow" David would have lent his voice. One of my favorite choices would have been "The Jeweller", originally from Pearls Before Swine.

Here's a funny fragment from the book:

"One Poker player who hung around the studio was [Jon] Turner's friend Les McKeown, the former singer of the Scottish Seventies pop stars The Bay City Rollers, an obsession of many a pre-pubescent and teenage girl. "Late at night", Ivo recalls, "I'd often play a cassette with David Sylvian's "Brilliant Trees" on one side and Scott Walker's "Climate Of Hunter" on the other. Les would say: "Who's this, then? Do people make a living out of this kind of music?""

the hope blister ...let the happiness in

God that was 16 years ago. Thats crazy. I've been trying to read that book for months, I've only made it to page 120. Its so dense with many great stories. David should have taken his act to 4ad after Secrets. Maybe he wouldn't have lost the momentum.

and dare I say...Climate was the last of the great SW albums.

I don't think the momentum was lost until after The First Day and Damage when he spent years on Dead Bees in-between having family time, but that's a whole other thread. Virgin would probably have loved him to have done more in the 1990s.

Chad wrote:and dare I say...Climate was the last of the great SW albums.

Well, it's indeed the album you can listen to and enjoy it at the same time. The albums afterwards are difficult with heavy concepts and weird ideas. I guess when I was 20 and hadn't had so much (other) music, I would have jumped into them.