David Sylvian: Everything And Nothing

David Sylvian confounds the notion of a "best of" or "greatest hits" collection, since he's hardly popular enough to warrant even such run-of-the-mill commercial designations. Sylvian's old group, Japan, mustered a minor 1981 hit with "Ghosts," but since going solo, he's followed his own muse as a consistently intriguing cult artist. Granted, few cult artists can fill an entire disc with stellar material, let alone two, and Everything And Nothing (its title appropriately Zen-like, coming from the Buddhist convert) demonstrates the way an album artist should assemble a career-spanning retrospective. The set includes material from several of Sylvian's projects, but Everything And Nothing finds a way to cast his subtle peaks in a fresh light. While many of the unreleased songs come from the sessions for Sylvian's last studio album, Dead Bees On A Cake, songs like "The Scent Of Magnolia" equal the mystical and hypnotic tracks that ended up on the disc. A few selections from the one-off Japan reunion Rain Tree Crow hint at what the band might have evolved into had Sylvian stayed the course. Meanwhile, the collection places collaborations with Ryuichi Sakamoto ("Heartbeat [Tainai Kaiki II]") and Robert Fripp (the funky but discordant "God's Monkey") within the context of Sylvian's own work; mingling in a new milieu, they further exhibit what a singular stylist he's become. Intriguingly, Sylvian has also revisited old Japan tracks, remixing "Ghosts" and completing a 20-year-old outtake, "Some Kind Of Fool," from Gentlemen Take Polaroids. He adds some post-studio polish to a few of his own solo works, as well (one highlight, "Ride," is a leftover from 1987's Secrets Of The Beehive). Though purists may cringe at the retroactive fussing, Sylvian is the kind of constantly developing artist who brings new ideas to everything he revisits, always searching for the right mood and texture like a pop-music philosopher who considers music part of a quest for spiritual perfection. The fact that Everything And Nothing works as a thematic piece shows that Sylvian is on the right track.