David Sylvian © Anthony Pidgeon / MediaPunch/Alamy
Qalam strives to explore the interpenetration of different cultures. To this end, we have decided to launch a series of playlists in which music mediates between different geographical and ideological spaces. Our first playlist is called ‘West to East: One Hundred Best Songs’. It will be updated several times a week, and its curation will focus on how Western pop culture has reflected the realities of the East, whether they are musical, geographical, religious, or political. (The terms ‘West’ and ‘East’ should be taken as broadly and arbitrarily as possible.)
Even during his time as the vocalist of the band Japan, David Sylvian, the androgynous son of an English plasterer, showed himself to be a fervent orientalist. One notable example is his Maoist album Tin Drum in 1981.
The enlightened song ‘Krishna Blue’ from his fifth solo album, Dead Bees on a Cake (1999), is already, in Dante's words, the sweet light of the Eastern sapphire. Strictly speaking, Krishna is represented here only by the blue color of the skin and the characteristic feeling of a cloud found in Indian poetry. Sylvian's music indeed resembles the movement of a thundercloud. At the center of the musical narrative is an abstract female figure, symbolizing the kind of Krishna worship in which separation from the deity is understood as a form of ecstasy. The lyrical hero embarks on a path of transformation and opens the gates to love and madness.
This album also features performances by Eastern luminaries including Ryuichi Sakamoto (Sylvian's musical partner for half a century) and Talvin Singh.