Assemblage album about an hour ago, and was thinking the exact same thing!!! And he had a beard at one stage!

Top pop

a Japan revival!!

Taking Islands in Africa is an outstanding track and Polaroids still holds up to scrutiny today.

prefer that album to Tin Drum, I was listening to that album today as well! I am having a bit of a Japan day today!

was very much of it's time, I haven't been able to play it since 1983, Polaroids still gets an airing and to a lesser degree Quiet Life

David Sylvian, being reintroduced into the wild, after our total failure to make him breed in captivity.

The hair doesn't date well, but a greatly underrated rhythm section in my view...

were the 80's, and the current spate of reissues etc has allowed us to reappraise those supposed musical "Dark Days". There were some great bands weren't there? Japan still, for me anyway, stand up pretty well by virtue of the fact that they still sound like absolutely no-one else. Mind you, a lot of bands at that time sounded like no-else either didn't they?
I mean..
ABC, Heaven 17, Human League ( anyone off to the see the 3 bands in December?)
Scritti Politti, Depeche Mode, Soft Cell
Sisters of Mercy
The Bunnymen, The Blue Nile
The Blancmange reissues are also pretty good and as for the excellent TALK TALK live in Montreux DVD, don't get me started - sheer pop heaven!
I missed the Yazoo shows, but I believe they were pretty damn good.
I saw Thomas Dolby a year or so ago and his old stuff was still great too.
Did anyone catch the OMD shows?
2 other points...
1) It's funny how popstars feel the need to move towards "Jazz"(and its broad church) when they want to be taken more seriously.
2) Stock, Aitken and Waterman have a lot to answer for. They ruined a decade.
As for Sylvian, his career path has been pretty varied, hasn't it? We all liked the Rain Tree Crow album didn't we?
I am 39 years of age and my most recent purchase was the new Secret Machines album. It's a grower.

A band so perfectly of their time (1982-3) listening to them is time travel.

Does anyone else remember the bass player - Mick Karn I think, and his quite extra-ordinary sideways scuttling shuffle walk/dance on-stage? Or have I imagined it 25 years on from the Manchester Apollo.

his work with the likes of Fennesz, Burnt Friedman, Jaki Liebzeit and various others have produced some lovely results e.g. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Snow-Borne-Sorrow-Nine-Horses/dp/B000B8GUGO/ref=...

is kweye-ert...

see here for evidence:
http://a979.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/99/l_25308085b3fc19fe91cea...

blog, I starting checking out some recent Sylvian releases and came across the Nine Horses album 'Snow Borne Sorrow', which is excellent and in the same vein as 'Brilliant Trees', well worth checking out!

Agree that Sylvian never went away, as sell out appearances at venues like the Festival Hall recently highlight.
Nine Horses 'Snow Borne Sorrow' is the best thing he has done since the truly wondrous 'Secrets of the Beehive' album - 'Atom and Cell' is by a long distance the best song I've heard this decade.

Has also done some really good stuff with artists such as Blonde Redhead and Tweaker (ex Nine Inch Nails bloke, and Joan as Policewoman. He also contributes a heartbreaking vocal 'Playground Martyrs' to Steve Jansen's album Slope (available on itunes) His label Samadhi Sound is to be applauded for all the other interesting records it puts out, by artists such as Harold Budd and the late Derek Bailey.

Sadly despite the frequency with which Sylvian is mentioned on this site The Word big cheeses are not exactly fans. Mark certainly isn't and David confessed in print and on a podcast to refusing to allow a Dave Rimmer review of one of Sylvian's albums to be given five stars, even though he was happy to award the same to Simon's 'Graceland'. Each to their own and all that, but how is it possible to rate 'You Can Call Me Al' over say 'Let The Happiness In' or 'Before the Bullfight'?? I think the photos of Sakamoto in the Arctic in a recent issue is as close as we are going to get to seeing David Sylvian featured in The Word.