Customer Reviews

Brilliant Trees & Words With the Shaman

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The make up was still visible, the hairspray still holding fast, but this embarkation into the big solo world for Sylvian was not the stumbling of a new-born lamb, but the flapping wings of a caged bird set free! Gone were the heavily disguised lyrics that were a trademark of the Sylvian of old, replaced instead with an introspection that had been started a few years previous on the haunting "Ghosts" from 'Tin Drum". This was a man with something to say, something to exorcise and fears to share. Although not quite at the improvisation stage that he would reach with later work, Brilliant Trees moves heavily towards Jazz, a result of viewing the work of artist Frank Auerbach ('Oil on Canvas' sleeve artwork) and marvelling at its 'looseness'. Jazz for him seemed the closest musical form of this spontaneous painting style, allowing him the freedom to experiment musically, without the polished finishes that encapsulated the work done previously with Japan. This is a grey album. It makes no effort to please the listener. It marks the end of one Sylvian era and the begining of another. Sylvian is dead. Long live Sylvian. But for all this, 'Brilliant Trees is a masterpiece. He admitted to feeling uncomfortable singing such personal lyrics during the recording sessions. But sing them he did and took the first steps on the road to the contented inner-self that would almost be his by the time "dead Bees..." was released almost two decades later. 'Brilliant Trees' beauty lies in its ability to ask YOU questions about YOUR life. So take this album, listen, ask, and ultimately enrich your life!

Words with the Shaman continues the themes started earlier on Brilliant Trees and marks Sylvian's move towards uncommercial ambience and relative obscurity, but at the same time, towards critical acclaim and acceptance as a serious artist. Made up of three instrumental pieces "Words..." is an unchallenging piece that is pleasing enough on the ear, without demanding too much attention.

One of my all time favourites. I have lived more than half of my life with this album and the enchantment never stops. Although the 'Words with te Shaman'-section is a nice but unnecessary add-on, and the album kicks off on the wrong foot with the dullish up-tempo track 'Pulling Punches', everything else on this CD just shines. The title track alone makes the five stars well-deserved. The lyrics by themselves make beautiful poetry, but in combination with the adagio-feel of the music and Jon Hassle's airy trumpet-sound it really is one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written.

First off, I am a big fan of David Sylvian's fluid vocals, so to me this album is like a billion wonderful Christmas presents. Secondly, I'm a huge jazz-funk fan, and the jazz-funk of "Red Guitar" *ALONE* was worth the cost of the whole CD in my opinion. Third, this is *THE* DS album to buy if you want the same sort of relaxing, soothing, "drown-out-the-real-world" sort of feeling you would get from an album like "Gentlemen Take Polaroids". Fourth, title track...'nuff said. Fifth, it's a special bonus treat to have "Words With the Shaman" on this CD, making it two albums in one. David Sylvian proved his worth as a great solo artist with this brilliant debut album. BRAVO!

...well, for me, anyway. This one took me, musically speaking, from infancy to some sort of liminal state where my tastes were beginning to mature, like some sort of emotional and aesthetic signpost to adulthood. From go to whoa, this is a magnificent piece.
Other reviewers have been a little dismissive of "Pulling Punches", but check out the lyrics and the moaning trumpet work from Jon Hassell. moreover, listen to it in light of what comes after. "Pulling Punches" is like a question, or a manifesto, that is not resolved until (if then) "Brilliant Trees" - which is possibly my favourite Sylvian track of all ("Words with the Shaman", "Firepower" and "Mutability" run about level here) for the beauty of the lyrics and the delicacy of its musical realisation. In between times one is carried through a series of collaborations and collisions that result in a series of textures and soundscapes that appall in their despair ("Backwaters", "Weathered Wall"), enchant ("Red Guitar") and simply make you sing ("The Ink in the Well").
I am an unashamed fan of David Sylvian. This album -although it is not his most complete work - is why.

I think the thing that startled me on hearing this album, steeped as I was in in the evocative but distant music of Japan, was its immediacy and its warmth. Guitars that gasp! sounded like acoustic guitars and not like strangled birds. A fat acoustic bass here, piano front and center there. And the singing seemed less mannered, more earthy and transparent. While the album yields plenty of musical surprises -- Holger Czukay's squawking radio, Jan Hassel's plateau of trumpets, and lots of manipulated sounds -- the songs are disarmingly straightforward. It was as if Sylvian, once the high priest of artifice, was really trying to communicate. To this day, it is a near flawless album about reminiscence, faith and love. The one misstep is "Pulling Punches" which sounds dated, in much the same way as Talking Heads' "white funk" output at the time seems dated. But that's truly a minor quibble when contrasted with the wonderful jazzy sweep of "The Ink in the Well," or the sublime musical narrative of "Nostalgia". Above all, the title track remains to this listener one of the purest testaments to the power of, yep I'll say it, love, in any context. The addition of the "Shaman" EP is a bit of a distraction -- anything after the last note of "Brilliant Trees" fades is bound to disappoint, but it does follow thematically in terms of the Hassel collaboration. Sylvian would fulfill the promise of this debut with "Secrets of the Beehive" and revisit many of the themes many, many years later with "Dead Bees on a Cake." A troika of classic albums.

I listened to this album almost continuously when it first came out (and for several years after that). This weekend when I dug it out again after a long hiatus, I wasn't sure what to expect. It's an album I associate with my (more) angsty youth when I'd lie on my bed for hours and let the music and the sound of David Sylvian's voice sink into my pores. Would I now find it cringe-worthy? Hurriedly delegate it to a teen nostalgia box? Well, I can tell you that I was blown away. If anything I appreciate its magic even more some 20 years later. This was David Sylvian's first solo work after Japan's break-up, and he allowed himself to be much more revealing. The lyrics are deeply personal and spiritual. The musical style I'd describe as jazzy-ethereal-poppy. I also found it more positive and uplifting than I remembered (it obviously bends to many moods). I'm now on a Japan kick (I know that DS has been dismissive of Japan but I think they were wonderful, especially in the last couple of years). Anyway, Brilliant Trees: a modern, quite brilliant album. I'll be listening to this for a long time to come.

I, Like so many before me, heard the name David Sylvian through his connection with Robert Fripp, probably the most influentional person (second only to Todd Rundgren) on me growing up as a young musician. I had always enjoyed the first day album, but never gave David Sylvian another shot. Then one day at my local record store, looking for something to get I came across "Brilliant Trees" on Vinyl. Something about the record just said that I would love it. And by god, this was the sound I had been so deperately looking for for the last year or so (as you all should know, everything sounds the same these days). I'd have to say this album gets its best justice from start to finish, but if I had to pick a favorite tune, I would have to say the haunting "Nostalgia", or the weepingly beautiful "Brilliant Trees". Easily a Five, even six star album.

Having been a fan of Sylvian's band, Japan, I jumped at the chance to purchase his first solo effort, thinking that it would carry the Japan "sound" into new and interesting territories. I was right, but also a bit startled, to say the least. Gone was the "New Romantic" sound of Japan and instead, what greeted me was a whole other side and world of David Sylvian. The atmospheres were there (thanks to Richard Barbieri and Steve Jansen of Japan), but the jazziness and stripped-down sound was a bit jarring at first. Nonetheless, it proved to win me over and bring me in.

Standouts on the album are "The Ink in the Well," "Pulling Punches," and (for me) most of all, the title track "Brilliant Trees." "Brilliant Trees" is a haunting "love" song which I have played many times and it still retains the initial emotional impact it had when I first listened to it. Jon Hassell's trumpet is haunting, the "ambient" sounds make this song very powerful.

It's a double treat to be able to have "Words With the Shaman" on the CD as well, as I had previously only heard it as part of Sylvian's boxed set "Weatherbox" which is now out of print. There are some fine moments in it, (especially Jon Hassell, again) but it is an instrumental piece; showing again that Sylvian was interested in pushing his boundaries even further.

I recommend this recording, but also strongly urge purchase of "Gone to Earth" and "Secrets of the Beehive" which shows Sylvian's further development as a great writer and sonic experimentor.

I stumbled over this one today, and I was absolutely flabberghasted about how modern it sounds. Some of the electronic sounds used here are still used or emulated in today's Electronica. Sure, the album takes off in a wrong direction with "Pulling Punches", and I beg to differ from most reviewers on the qualities of John Hassel's trumpet sounds, but everything else sounds as beautiful and fresh as it did when the album was first released. If I only I knew when that was - 1985 maybe?
Now if only more people remembered Talk Talk's late period albums.

This 1st album is very good. I love his art and his words. I have buyed this album when David showed the track called Weathered Wall in a Italian Program.I loved it, and today too!!