David Sylvian - The Most Fascinating Facts Anywhere

1. He Planned the Album Around Specific Musicians Before Meeting Them

For Brilliant Trees, Sylvian did not simply hire a group of accomplished session players and see what happened. He worked on arrangements at home and imagined particular musical contributions from artists whose work he already admired. The compositions suggested which musicians should play on them, turning the choice of collaborators into part of the writing process itself.

2. The Sound of Jon Hassell's Trumpet Helped Inspire the Title Track

Sylvian began developing the arrangement for “Brilliant Trees” on a four-track machine at home. He experimented with a synthesizer sound that reminded him of Jon Hassell's distinctive trumpet playing, and built the piece's closing section around the idea of Hassell performing it. At that stage, he had not even contacted Hassell about appearing on the record.

3. Sylvian Wanted Everyone to Feel Like a Foreigner

Choosing Berlin was partly a deliberate attempt to put the musicians, including Sylvian himself, outside their familiar surroundings. In a 1984 interview, he explained that he wanted everyone to be a foreigner working together in an unfamiliar place, creating a sense of adventure. He felt this was a new experience compared with recording with Japan.

4. The Main Berlin Sessions Took Place at Hansa

The album's key Berlin sessions took place at Hansa Tonstudio in 1983, with further recording completed in London. Hansa's atmosphere and location suited Sylvian's wish to move away from the familiar routine of band recording. The album was ultimately released in 1984, becoming his first solo studio album after Japan's break-up.

5. Steve Nye Was More Than Just the Producer

Nye co-produced the album with Sylvian and also engineered and mixed much of it. His role was important in bringing together contributions from musicians with very different musical languages. The album credits also list Peter Williams as an engineer, with some tracks mixed by Nigel Walker alongside Sylvian rather than following one identical process across the whole record.

6. Sylvian Preferred Working With Musicians One at a Time

Putting distinctive players such as Ryuichi Sakamoto, Jon Hassell and Holger Czukay into the same room could have made the sessions difficult to manage. Sylvian later explained that he preferred to work individually, talking each musician through their role. This allowed him to concentrate on the particular contribution he wanted while giving the player room to respond creatively.

7. The Guests Were Not Given Finished Demos to Copy

Sylvian recalled that the invited musicians generally had not heard the material in advance. He wanted them to approach the pieces with a sense of discovery rather than arrive with a pre-formed idea of what they should play. The approach depended on their generosity and willingness to experiment with music that was still developing in the studio.

8. Holger Czukay Was Deliberately the Wild Card

Sylvian had a clear idea of what he wanted from most of his guests, but Czukay was the exception. He admired the former Can musician's solo album Movies and invited him to bring an unpredictable element to the sessions. Czukay's playful approach to sound, recording and chance gave Sylvian something different from a conventional instrumental performance.

9. Czukay Used an IBM Dictaphone to Create Unexpected Sounds

Rather than relying solely on standard studio equipment, Czukay used an IBM Dictaphone to play back recorded material and samples. Sylvian was fascinated by the results: snippets of sound could be introduced in ways that were difficult to predict or reproduce through ordinary arranging. The Dictaphone became one of the album's most distinctive tools for bringing chance into the music.

10. “Pulling Punches” Contains Dictaphone Brass That Fell Into Place by Chance

Sylvian later described how Czukay played back recorded brass sounds during a run-through of “Pulling Punches”. The sounds happened to land in positions that worked with the music, and those placements survived into the finished track. It was a vivid example of the album's method: rather than plan every detail, Sylvian sometimes allowed an unexpected recording to reveal what belonged in the arrangement.

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11. Czukay Once Recorded Guitar From Outside the Studio

Sylvian recalled that the studio could not produce a clean guitar sound while Czukay was playing inside. The solution was decidedly unconventional: Czukay sat outside in a courtyard, with the guitar on a table and cables running back into the studio. Office workers had brought their desks outside on the hot day, leaving Czukay playing among them and joking about how much he was being paid to do it.

12. The Album's Sense of Place Was Something Sylvian Wanted to Invent

Sylvian was interested in music that suggested a place without identifying any real location. He described wanting to create an imagined landscape in the listener's mind, something particularly important to the longer and more atmospheric pieces. This idea helped move his solo work away from the tighter structures and arrangements associated with Japan.

13. Ryuichi Sakamoto and Sylvian Often Communicated Through Music

Behind-the-scenes footage from the Berlin sessions shows Sakamoto working with Sylvian and the other musicians. Sylvian later recalled that Sakamoto's English was still rudimentary at the time, so much of their exchange was musical rather than verbal. Their earlier collaboration on “Bamboo Houses” and “Forbidden Colours” had already established a creative connection that continued on Brilliant Trees.

14. The Recording Was Not a Smooth, Technically Perfect Process

The Berlin sessions had their technical frustrations, despite the creative atmosphere. Later accounts of the recording describe difficulties at Hansa, including problems that complicated work in the basement studio. The move between Berlin and London meant the album developed across different recording environments rather than being completed in one uninterrupted stretch at a single studio.

15. London Sessions Helped Complete the Album

After the initial Berlin gathering, recording continued in London, including sessions at JAM Studios in north London. Engineer Peter Williams later recalled the studio's equipment and working set-up, which offered a more familiar environment after the technical problems in Berlin. The finished album was therefore the result of work across two cities and more than one phase of recording.

16. “Brilliant Trees” and “Weathered Wall” Were Joint Compositions

Although most of the album's songs were written by Sylvian alone, the music for “Weathered Wall” and the title track was credited to Sylvian and Hassell. Their collaboration was more than a guest trumpet part added to an already completed song: Hassell's musical voice had helped shape the conception of the title track before Sylvian approached him to play on it.

17. Kenny Wheeler Brought a Different Brass Voice to the Sessions

The album's guest list extended beyond Hassell. Jazz trumpeter and flugelhorn player Kenny Wheeler appeared on “The Ink in the Well” and “Nostalgia”, while Mark Isham played trumpet on “Red Guitar”. Rather than building one uniform brass sound across the record, Sylvian chose musicians whose individual styles could give different compositions their own character.

18. Danny Thompson Added Double Bass to “The Ink in the Well”

The celebrated double bassist Danny Thompson played on “The Ink in the Well”, bringing an acoustic bass presence to a record otherwise full of synthesizers, unusual textures and atmospheric sound. His contribution helped give the track a supple, jazz-influenced feel. The choice illustrates how Sylvian combined highly distinctive instrumentalists instead of relying on a single band format.

19. Sylvian Built “Weathered Wall” Around a Sense of Movement

“Weathered Wall” is one of the album’s most exploratory pieces, combining Ryuichi Sakamoto’s keyboards with Jon Hassell’s distinctive trumpet and percussion from Steve Jansen. Rather than following a conventional verse-and-chorus structure, the music develops through shifting layers of rhythm and texture. Its gradual evolution reflects Sylvian’s interest in creating an imagined landscape through sound, with the different musicians contributing to a constantly changing atmosphere.

20. The Album Changed Sylvian's Way of Working for Years Afterwards

Sylvian later described the process of matching compositions to particular musical voices as a method he continued to use. The sessions taught him that the right collaborators could open up a piece in ways he could not have planned alone. Released in June 1984, Brilliant Trees reached number four in the UK album chart and established the expansive, exploratory direction of his solo career.

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Other Artists

• Japan
• Ryuichi Sakamoto
• Holger Czukay
• Brian Eno
• David Rhodes