May 10
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David Sylvian
Manafon
Manafon, David Sylvian (2009)
At the end of the 2000s, David Sylvian was still compiling drool-worthy line-ups for his solo works – Manafon saw contributions from Fennesz, Otomo Yoshihide, Sachiko M, Evan Parker and plenty of other established names in experimental music. But did that line-up combine to create a record that was actually enjoyable? I’m not sure. A couple of tracks on Manafon(‘Small Metal Gods’, ‘Emily Dickinson’, ‘Manafon’) stack up to Sylvian’s best – a mix of eerie electroacoustic improv and reductionist balladeering – but most feels overly sparse.
Pick: ‘Small Metal Gods’
Manafon by David Sylvian 2009
For the recording of Manafon, Sylvian was also inspired by the Welsh poet R. S. Thomas: lyrics often reflect the main themes written by the poet and the title of the album refers indeed to a Welsh namesake village (in north Powys) in which Thomas lived for a while.
"Manafon is indeed a village in Wales, a village in which Thomas lived for sometime and served as rector to the parish. In this small village, Thomas had trouble filling the pews of a Sunday but in a sense it was something of an idyllic spot in which to raise a child (a strict, taciturn and somewhat indifferent parent), master his profession and write his poetry. So, the physically real village became for me a metaphor for the poetic imagination."
David Sylvian (2009)
Now I’ll preface this by saying I’m a huge David Sylvian fan — saw him twice in concert back in the day and will go to my deathbed with Alchemy as one of my top-5 records of all-time, closely followed by Brilliant Trees. That said — I picked up 2009’s 2-LP Manafon on vinyl the other week, quite proud of myself for getting it for $29.99 instead of $47, and I’ve got to say…I got overcharged by $29 as far as I’m concerned. Hell, I should be paid $29 just to have to listen to it. Y’know, I have a lot of the Flux & Mutability-type stuff he has done over the years, and it’s no secret that he leans into ethereal sound collages. I’m good with that; some of them are pretty cool. Manafon is not cool. This is as if he read every review that ever called his music pretentious and said “Oh YEAH? I’ll show you! You ain’t seen nothing yet!” This stuff is so formless in its execution, so arrogant in its supposition that someone would want to hear it, so mindbogglingly dull and pointless that it’s really indefensible even as abstract soundwork. It’s bad art done badly. What a disappointment.
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