David Sylvian's Relationships Explained: Marriage, Collaborators, and Faqs
By Chloe Bennett
Beyond romance, Sylvian’s deepest and most enduring artistic relationship was with the late Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto. Beginning with the 1982 collaborative single "Bamboo Houses" and cementing their place in music history with "Forbidden Colours" (the vocal theme to Nagisa Oshima’s Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence), Sakamoto provided the structural harmonic genius that complemented Sylvian’s baritone vocals. Unlike his volatile band dynamics, Sylvian’s work with Sakamoto functioned on mutual respect and creative autonomy. They collaborated across four decades until Sakamoto’s passing in March 2023, an event Sylvian marked with private tributes and archival retrospectives.
In contrast, working with his former Japan colleagues proved impossible to sustain. In 1989, Sylvian, Mick Karn, Steve Jansen, and Richard Barbieri convened in European studios to write through pure improvisation, adopting the moniker Rain Tree Crow to escape past brand expectations. The project was meant to heal wounds opened by the 1982 split.
Old patterns returned. As Virgin Records' recording budgets dwindled, Sylvian funded final mixing himself. In exchange, he insisted on mixing the material alone and keeping final authority over sequence and credits. Karn, Jansen, and Barbieri were furious. Karn later described this solo control as an artistic hijacking, noting that Sylvian had reverted to treating them as hired hands rather than equals. The album was released in April 1991 to glowing reviews, but the band did not tour and never recorded together again. Sylvian's brotherly relationship with Steve Jansen survived intermittently, but the rift with Mick Karn was never truly healed before Karn’s death from cancer in 2011.
Chloe Bennett explores the intersection of pop culture, streaming entertainment, digital trends, and contemporary lifestyle. Her weekly commentary reaches thousands of culture enthusiasts.
