David Sylvian was an English musician, singer and songwriter who became known in the late 1970s as the lead singer and main songwriter of Japanese bands. The band’s androgynous look and increasingly electronic sound made them a major influence on the British Neo-Romantic scene of the early 1980s.

After their split, Sylvian launched a solo career with his debut album Brilliant Trees (1984). His solo work has been described by AllMusic as “profound and esoteric,” and includes sessions with artists such as Ryuichi Sakamoto, Robert Fripp, Holger Chukai, Jon Hassel, Bill Nelson, and Finnis. cooperate.

While his recordings of the 1980s and 1990s mixed pop, jazz fusion and avant-garde experimentalism with ambient music, his more recent work draws increasingly on musical minimalism and free improvisation.

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David Sylvian was born David Alan Bart in Beckenham, Kent, England. [6] He grew up in a workingmen’s home in Lewisham, near South London. His father Bernard was a plasterer and his mother Sheila was a homemaker. He has an older sister and a younger brother Steve. Sylvian later said he never enjoyed his childhood, largely because of the Lewisham environment in the mid-Sixties. In 1966, he and Steve competed in Major Matt Mason’s action figure ad for Mattel.

As an escape from discomfort and an emotional release, he discovered an interest in music through his sister, who brought Motown and soul records into the house. He attended Catford Boys’ School, where he became friends with Anthony Michael Eades, later known as Mick Caan. When David got an acoustic guitar from his father and his brother a drum set for Christmas, the three started making music together.

Japan began as a group of friends that included bassist Mick Karn, guitarist Rob Dean, keyboardist Richard Barbieri and drummer Sylvian’s brother Steve. As teenagers, they turned to music as an escape, playing Sylvian two-chord repertoires—sometimes Kahn-dominated, sometimes Sylvian-dominated. A fan of the New York Dolls, Sylvian took his stage name from Sylvain Sylvain and his brother Jansen from David Johansen.