Manafon

Even towards the end of his tenure as the frontman for reluctant New Romantic figureheads Japan, David Sylvian was already doing as much as possible to distance himself from the mainstream. With a couple of exceptions, that process has continued throughout his two-and-a-half-decade solo career, as he has pushed ever further from pop shores, like a second-generation Scott Walker (whose voice and occasionally mad-seeming methods are not dissimilar to Sylvian's). For Manafon, Sylvian brought together a stellar array of avant-gardists, free jazzers, and electronicats for a series of recorded improvisations, over which he wrote and sang his lyrics. While the often atonal excursions of Fennesz, Evan Parker, Keith Rowe and company are as against-the-grain as anything else in Sylvian's discography, the masterstroke here is the way the former Japan man brings the whole thing together with some of the most intriguing lyrics and memorable melodies he's written in years. Despite the outré accompaniment, Sylvian's creamy baritone is as delicious as ever here, adding an oddly sweet frosting to Manafon's tough textures, and his smooth, breathy delivery suggests a man completely comfortable with the strange, knotty path he's chosen for himself.