Secrets of the Beehive

Secrets of the Beehive
Studio album by David Sylvian
Released	19 October 1987
Recorded	1987
Studio	London and Bath, England Chateau Miraval, Le Val, France Wisseloord Studios, Hilversum, The Netherlands
Genre	Art rock avant-garde
Length	34:30 original LP 40:31 CD reissue 43:59 Japanese CD
Label	Virgin
Producer	Steve Nye
David Sylvian chronology
Gone to Earth (1986) Secrets of the Beehive (1987) Plight & Premonition (1988)
Singles from Secrets of the Beehive
"Let the Happiness In" Released: September 1987 "Orpheus" Released: May 1988

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[1]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music	[2]
Mojo	[3]
Pitchfork	9.1/10[4]

Secrets of the Beehive is a solo album by British singer-songwriter David Sylvian and it was released on 19 October 1987 (in Europe, UK and America). The album peaked at no.37 in the UK album chart.^[5] The album was released in Japan on 21 November 1987.^[6]

Background[]

Sylvian said in an interview 2012 about the album:^[7]

"That's an odd record, really, because just prior to that I'd been on a really extensive press tour for Gone to Earth which was just taking me all over the globe, and I was quite exhausted talking about the work and didn't feel quite ready to sit down and embrace writing at that moment in time. But it just started coming to me, as soon as I had settled back into my home the material started arriving, and in a period of about two weeks everything was written. And it wasn't something that I'd planned on doing: I hadn't conceived the album in its entirety, as an entity in itself, it's just a batch of songs that sort of arrived and fell in my lap. It felt like a gift. I recognised that there was a beauty to the material and it already felt to me like something I had heard before. It felt like it was going to be around for a while, and I don't know why it felt that way, but every time I returned to one of the pieces it felt so familiar, like this has been around a very long time, it's going to be around for a long time to come. So it was very much a gift to me in that respect." "Secrets Of The Beehive" was met with a considerable amount of hostility in the press, and on top of that there were pieces missing that I never got to complete. I just ran out of budget and there wasn't any more forthcoming to allow me to complete the record as I envisioned it. So, although I liked the material on the album, the centrepiece is missing, so for me it was something of a failure."

The missing piece was the song "Ride", which was later completed and finally released 2000 on the compilation album "Everything and Nothing". Sylvian said : "I was crushed when I wasn't able to finish it first time around due to time and budget constraints."

Secrets of the Beehive was his most intimate to date and used more acoustic instruments than ever before. By many regarded as his finest solo work. Produced by Steve Nye and David Sylvian, the album features Ryuichi Sakamoto, David Torn, Mark Isham, Phil Palmer, Danny Thompson and Steve Jansen.

Sylvian and Nye would travel to France and The Netherlands to record much of the album before completing it in England. The orchestral overdubs were recorded midway through the album, at Angel Studios and at Air in London. Sakamoto had scored the majority of the songs, except "Orpheus" and "Let the Happiness In", were scored by arranger Brian Gascoigne, who had also worked with Scott Walker. The album was completed early summer 1988 at Tears for Fears' Wool Hall Studios in Beckington.

In 2003, a remastered limited digipak version of 'Secrets of the Beehive' was released with the bonus track from the Japanese version 'Promise (The Cult of Eurydice)' replacing the original CD bonus track 'Forbidden Colours(version)', which was a re-recorded version of the Sakamoto/Sylvian collaboration originally intended for Brilliant Trees, but eventually released as b-side to the Red Guitar single. In 2006 it was reissued in a standard jewel-case.

In February 2019, as part of a redesigned monochrome sleeved vinyl reissue batch of his 80s albums, Secrets.. was released in a gatefold sleeve with different type fonts, but otherwise maintaining the original artwork.

Track listing[]

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

Personnel[]

• David Sylvian – vocals, piano (1), acoustic guitar (2, 4, 6), organ (2, 8), synths (2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 10), tapes (3, 5), treated piano (5)
• Ryuichi Sakamoto – string arrangement (1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 10), organ (2, 3, 5, 7, 8), synths (2, 4, 8), piano (4, 5, 7, 9, 10), treated piano (3), woodwind arrangement (5), brass arrangement (8)
• Steve Jansen – drums (4, 8, 10)
• David Torn – electric guitar (2, 7), guitar loop (3)
• Danny Thompson – double bass (2, 4, 7)
• – percussion (2, 6, 7, 8)
• Phil Palmer – slide guitar (4), acoustic guitars (6)
• Mark Isham – flugelhorn (4,8), trumpet (6, 8)
• Brian Gascoigne – orchestral arrangement (4), string arrangement (8)
• Ann O'Dell – string arrangement (10)

Technical personnel[]

• Steve Nye – producer, mixing, engineer
• David Sylvian – assistant producer, assistant mixing
• Peter Williams – co-engineer (10)
• Richard Moakes – second engineer
• Steve Parker – second engineer
• John Timperley – second engineer
• Jean-Jacques Lemoine – assistant engineer
• Roland Prent – assistant engineer
• Steve Williams – assistant engineer
• Richard Chadwick – recording co-ordinating
• Catherine Wilson – assistant in recording
• Vaughan Oliver (23 Envelope) – design, typography
• Nigel Grierson (23 Envelope) – still life photography
• Yuka Fujii – portrait photography

Charts[]

References[]