Gone to Earth (David Sylvian album)

Gone to Earth
Studio album by David Sylvian
Released	13 September 1986[1]
Recorded	1985–1986
Studio	London Oxfordshire
Genre	Art rock electronic ambient
Length	80:27
Label	Virgin
Producer	Steve Nye David Sylvian
David Sylvian chronology
Alchemy: An Index of Possibilities (1985) Gone to Earth (1986) Secrets of the Beehive (1987)
Singles from Gone to Earth
"Taking the Veil" Released: 28 July 1986 "Silver Moon" Released: 22 September 1986

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[2]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music	[3]
Mojo	[4]
Pitchfork	8.3/10[5]
Record Mirror	[6]
Smash Hits	3/10[7]

Gone to Earth is a Double album by British singer-songwriter David Sylvian, released 13 September 1986 on Virgin Records.^[8][9] This album was the follow-up to his debut Brilliant Trees and peaked at 24 in the UK Albums Chart.^[10][11]

History[]

The album is a two-record set featuring one record of experimental rock songs with vocals and one consisting entirely of ambient instrumental tracks.^[12] Guest artists include Robert Fripp (who co-wrote three songs) and Bill Nelson (who co-wrote one song). The album was recorded through 1985 and mid 1986 at Jam Studios in North London, Eel Pie Studios and at The Manor Studios in Oxfordshire, England, with producer Steve Nye. Sylvian said 1987: "I'd have liked to have recorded it all at Shipton Manor but we ran out of studio time. The rest of the album was done in Townhouse Studios, London. I find that most of the work that was completed in London was substandard compared to the work that was completed in Oxfordshire."^[13]

The album peaked at no.24. in the UK albums chart^[14] and has been certified Silver by the British Phonographic Industry for sales in excess of 60,000 copies.^[15]

Sylvian's record company were not particularly interested in his instrumental compositions, and funded the recording only of the songs on Disc 1 of the set, with Sylvan funding and recording the instrumentals on Disc 2 in his own time.

Sylvian, as on his earlier solo albums, continued to reference artists, writers and thinkers who were influencing him, though here he utilised the technique of using, within certain songs, snippets of the voices of particular figures. These include J.G. Bennett, Robert Graves and Joseph Beuys. The song "Laughter and Forgetting" was partly inspired by Milan Kundera's novel The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, though only via the lyrics, and not via the 'voice snippet' technique.

The original cover art by Russell Mills was largely inspired by Sylvian's then-current interest in Rosicrucianism and Gnosticism, particularly the writings of Robert Fludd.

Original UK, US and Japanese CD pressings omit four of the instrumentals: "Silver Moon Over Sleeping Steeples", "Camp Fire: Coyote Country", "A Bird of Prey Vanishes into a Bright Blue Cloudless Sky" and "Sunlight Seen Through Towering Trees". Later Japanese CD editions and the Weatherbox set both included the complete album on two discs. In 2003, the album was re-released in a double-disc format that mirrors the original vinyl release, and included three bonus remixes, while shortening the intro to "Before the Bullfight".

In February 2019, as part of a redesigned monochrome sleeved vinyl reissue batch of his 80s albums, Gone To Earth was released as a double album with a b/w picture of Sylvian replacing the original artwork. No new mastering was done for this; the 2003 remaster was used.

Sylvian said in an interview 2012 about the album:^[16]

"That album was put together piecemeal. I started on a variety of different musical projects but I hadn't one specific direction. I had the soundtrack to the film Steel Cathedrals, I had Words With The Shaman on the go, and added to that was a body of work that didn't necessarily sit well together. I then started writing songs, and I started recording a number: 'Wave', 'Before The Bullfight', 'Laughter And Forgetting'. So I ended up with this kind of – what do you call it – an incohesive collection of material, that I somehow had to make sense of. So what I did was persuade Virgin to put out the Words With The Shaman EP, put Steel Cathedrals to one side for the time being – I think it was released as a video only at the time – and then take the songs that I'd been working on and sort of develop them further and flesh that out into a full album. But I'd also been writing these little instrumental pieces which I really loved, and I wanted to pursue them as well. And the deal was that the budget for the album would not cater for the instrumental work, and if I wanted to produce it then I had to produce it in the off hours, like the end of a session or the very first thing in the morning before sessions got underway, and therefore produce it in my own time and at my own costs. So that's what I did. But for me it was a body of work, the instrumentals and the songs belonged together, and Virgin did allow me to release the album as a double ultimately. I'm not sure that they were that enthusiastic about it at the time, but they didn't put up too much of a fight on the creative issues.”

Critical reception[]

Gone to Earth was well received by the contemporary British music press. Sounds' Chris Roberts praised the album: "it's the perfect realisation of artist converting image to mood, subverting fantasy to super-reality. Delicate, but with the strength of legions, it's an Eighties masterpiece and conceivably his finest approximation of distilled beauty ever... [Gone to Earth] is almost as breathtaking as it is life giving."^[17]

Track listing[]

Original vinyl and Weatherbox CD pressings

All tracks are written by David Sylvian, except as noted.

For Weatherbox, Disc 1 included sides A and B, while Disc 2 included sides C and D.

Original CD pressing

2003 CD pressing

All tracks are written by David Sylvian, except as noted.

Personnel[]

Musicians

• David Sylvian – lead vocals, keyboards (A1, A3, B1, B2, B3), guitar (A1, A3, A4, B2) electronics (A1, A2)
• Robert Fripp – guitar (A1, A4, B1, B2, B3, D1, D5), Frippertronics (A4, B1, B2, B3)
• Steve Jansen – drums (A1, A3, B1, B2, B3)
• Phil Palmer – acoustic guitar (A1)
• Jennifer Maidman – bass (A1, B2, B3)
• Kenny Wheeler – flugelhorn (A2, A3)
• John Taylor – piano (A2)
• Bill Nelson – guitar (A3, B1, B3, C1, C2, D4)
• Richard Barbieri – electronics (A3, B1)
• Harry Beckett – flugelhorn (B1)
• Mel Collins – sax (B2, B3)
• B.J. Cole – pedal steel (B3, C5)
• Joseph Beuys – voice (C1)
• John G. Bennett – voice (A4)
• Robert Graves – voice (D5)

Technical

• Russell Mills – design
• David Buckland – photography
• Steve Nye – engineer, piano (C3)
• Nick Blundell- assistant engineer
• Julian Wheatley assistant engineer
• Noel Haris – assistant engineer
• Catherine Wilson – assistant engineer
• Yuka Fujii – special thanks

Charts[]

References[]