Users of stimuli will struggle with any number of consequential realities over their lives. Purity, price, the stigma of association; all these will temper an addict’s relationship with their chosen intoxicant, sooner or later. But above all, the nightmare scenario no-one ever warns you about when you get into music, is what happens when beloved acts go weird; and you wake up one morning to realize you’re still hitting on them, but the buzz has gone.

My monkey, the one I’ve been struggling with for years, is David Sylvian. No matter how much I try to move on, I still find myself surfing past his website, having convinced myself I’m just looking. Then, inevitably--like last Thursday--I spy him dealing new wares, and I’m scraping together cash and sweating the same old go-round.

Which brings us to Sylvian’s new work, “Died in the Wool,” his twelfth album of original material since becoming a solo artist, more if you count the myriad collaborative ventures the former man from Japan has engaged in since the mid-1980s.

Having begun to explore new methods of composition and instrumentation with 1985’s limited release “Alchemy: An Index of Possibilities,” at first Sylvian’s outré experiments were, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, indulged as luxuries not necessities. Yet over time--and accelerated by his break from Virgin Records around the turn of the century-- that parallel has since become reversed; with challenging compositions now default.

“Blemish” (2003) and “Manafon” (2009) proved Sylvian’s transcendence to the avant garde complete. Indifferent to public (and free from major label) demands, both collections swerved convention in favor of manipulated amplifier hum and cut-up guitar distortion across the former, with improvisation and jazz angularity the building blocks for the latter. But while his experimentation was to be applauded, the problem with “Blemish” was, over an entire album, its limited palette proved dull. Therapy from Sylvian’s divorce (from Ingrid Chavez) it may have been; one for full, repeat plays it wasn’t.  

Perversely, in between those two releases came the sublime, yet shamefully overlooked, Nine Horses group project “Snow Borne Sorrow,” arguably the closest the man has come to sustained pop alignment since Japan. Ditto “Died in the Wool,” which follows "Manafon" as a companion piece; yet, despite featuring material either reworked from or inspired by that album’s improvisational sessions, this new collection is far easier to breach. Which pretty much sustains the leap-frog motion of Sylvian’s contemporary career: left to his own devices, he will clearly veer his way out; yet buffered by others in what comes next, his compositions shine.    

This new album was apparently created via sound files emailed between Sylvian and the polar opposite camps of classical composer Dai Fujikura, and Jan Bang and Erik Honoré, a pair of electronic music producers. With the addition of new instrumentation, sampling and remixing, this binary circle has not only re-purposed much of the mother album’s experimental jaggedness that bit closer to conventional forms, but also inspired Sylvian to deliver one of his most beautiful works in years--the quite brilliant "I Should Not Dare." An emotive track so sublime as to suggest Sylvian is not, nor could he ever be, utterly lost to logic; it manages to both shimmer and clatter at the same time, via a mix that could best be described as sculptural, so clearly does it advertise the songs odd mechanics.

None of which resolves anything for me; beyond “I Should Not Dare,” I still find myself frustrated by much of “Died in the Wool.” Yet returning to that one singe track, I’m repeatedly elevated; an effect which music has less and less on me, these days. Don’t get me wrong, I understand how for composers like Sylvian, who’ve been in the game so long, pop’s limited meter will eventually become a dead language, incapable of communicating further. But his new patois, all angularity and sombre discord, is not of my tongue; I can listen to but rarely hear much in it, bar cleverness. Like, say, “A Love Supreme” by John Coltrane, Sylvian’s music is now more for the head than the heart. And while I admire Coltrane and admit to owning “A Love Supreme,” as to whether it moves me; well, in all honesty, it doesn’t. Which is fine; there was room in my collection for it, and others would service what Coltrane couldn’t. But unfortunately, one of those was David Sylvian.

Lingering on the disconnect between head and heart, I know Sylvian and I must part probably sooner or later. Which is sad and not something I was prepared for when I fell so hard for “Quiet Life.” But, alas, when you get into music it’s a leap of faith. And the last thing on your mind is what might happen when beloved acts go weird.

Photo: Samadhi Sound.