Japan were an English new wave band formed in 1974 in Catford, South London by David Sylvian, Steve Jansen (drums) and Mick Karn, joined by Richard Barbieri (keyboards) and Rob Dean the following year. Initially an alternative glam rock-inspired band, Japan developed their sound and androgynous look to incorporate electronic music and foreign influences.The band achieved success in the late 1970s and early 1980s, releasing nine UK Top 40 hits, including the 1982 Top 5 hit single "Ghosts", and scoring a UK Top 5 with the live album Oil on Canvas (1983). The band split in December 1982, just as they were beginning to experience commercial success in the UK and abroad. Its members went on to pursue other musical projects, though they reformed briefly in the early 1990s under the name Rain Tree Crow, releasing an album in 1991.
David Sylvian is an English singer-songwriter and musician who came to prominence in the late 1970s as frontman and principal songwriter of the band Japan. The band's androgynous look and increasingly electronic sound made them an important influence on the UK's early-1980s New Romantic scene. Following their breakup, Sylvian embarked on a solo career with his debut album Brilliant Trees (1984). His solo work has been described by AllMusic as "far-ranging and esoteric", and has included collaborations with artists such as Ryuichi Sakamoto, Robert Fripp, Holger Czukay, Jon Hassell, Bill Nelson and Fennesz. While his recordings of the 1980s and 1990s were a mixture of pop, jazz fusion, and avant-garde experimentalism mixed with ambient, his more recent compositions have drawn increasingly on musical minimalism and free improvisation.
Holger Czukay was a German musician, probably best known as a co-founder of the krautrock group Can. Described as "successfully bridg[ing] the gap between pop and the avant-garde", Czukay was also notable for having created early important examples of ambient music, for having explored "world music" well before the term was coined, and for having been a pioneer of sampling.
Gone to Earth is technically the third solo album by David Sylvian, released in September 1986. However, David Sylvian’s website davidsylvian.com states that Gone to Earth is "David Sylvian’s second solo album proper", and that the previous release Alchemy: An Index of Possibilities is an "intermediary album".
Steve Jansen is an English musician, composer and record producer.
David Toop is an English musician, author, and professor of audio culture and improvisation at the London College of Communication. He was a regular contributor to British music magazine The Wire and the British magazine The Face. He was a member of the Flying Lizards.
Toshio Iwai is a Japanese interactive media and installation artist who has also created a number of commercial video games. In addition he has worked in television, music performance, museum design and digital musical instrument design.
Rain Tree Crow is the sole album released by English band Rain Tree Crow, a reunion project by the members of the new wave band Japan. Recorded in 1989 and 1990 and released in April 1991, it was the first time that members David Sylvian, Mick Karn, Steve Jansen and Richard Barbieri had collaborated as a four-piece since 1982. The album peaked at number 24 on the UK Albums Chart.
Blemish is the sixth solo album by David Sylvian, released in 2003. Following Sylvian's acquittal from Virgin Records, he built a home studio, Samadhi Sound Studio, and recorded Blemish in early 2003. The album was inspired by, and documents, the disintegration of Sylvian's relationship with his wife, Ingrid Chavez, marking a turning point in Sylvian's lyrics as they became more personal and open and less oblique. Wanting to find a new musical vocabulary for himself, he recorded the album in a relatively quick, six-week duration, improvising the eight songs on the album as he went. It features guest appearances from free improvisation guitarist Derek Bailey, and electronic musician Fennesz.
Russell Mills is a British artist who was born in Ripon, Yorkshire, England in 1952. He has produced record covers and book covers for Brian Eno, the Cocteau Twins, Michael Nyman, David Sylvian, Peter Gabriel, and Nine Inch Nails.
Dead Bees on a Cake is the fifth solo album by David Sylvian, released in March 1999. It was his first solo album since 1987's Secrets of the Beehive. The album peaked at no. 31 in the UK Albums Chart at release and contained his last UK Top 40 single to date in "I Surrender".
Damage is a live recording of a 1993 tour by David Sylvian and Robert Fripp. It is taken from the final show of the tour.
Approaching Silence is a compilation album of ambient music by David Sylvian collecting the tracks from the 1991 limited release Ember Glance: The Permanence of Memory installation soundtrack CD as well as the soundtrack cassette from the installation "Redemption", staged in August 1994 at the P3 Gallery in Tokyo.
Stephan Mathieu is a German musician and sound artist whose work is based on digital and analog processing techniques. He currently lives in Bonn, Germany where he runs an independent studio for audio mastering and restoration.
Extracts from Music for White Cube, London 1997 is the sixteenth solo studio album from English musician Brian Eno, released in 1997.
Eraldo Bernocchi is an Italian guitarist, producer, and sound designer.
Assemblage is a compilation album by the British band Japan, released in 1981 by Hansa Records.
Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno is an English musician, record producer, visual artist, and theorist best known for his work in ambient music and contributions to rock, pop and electronica. A self-described "non-musician", Eno has helped introduce unique conceptual approaches and recording techniques to contemporary music. He has been described as one of popular music's most influential and innovative figures.
When Loud Weather Buffeted Naoshima is a limited edition CD by English musician David Sylvian that was commissioned as an installation piece by the Naoshima Fukutake Art Museum Foundation on the island of Naoshima, Japan, as part of the "NAOSHIMA STANDARD 2" exhibition which ran from October 2006 to April 2007. The album consists of one long ambient instrumental track. Writing in The Guardian, John L. Walters described it as "possibly the most avant-garde product made by a pop musician since Metal Machine Music".
"Life in Tokyo" is a song by the British band Japan. A collaboration with disco producer Giorgio Moroder, who also co-wrote the song with David Sylvian, it marked a change of direction from the band's previous sound. Originally released as a single in 1979, it was reissued twice before it finally became a hit on the UK Singles Chart in 1982.
