Rain Tree Crow Tracklist
Rain Tree Crow’s sole eponymous studio album was conceived among rediscovered tension among its members, tension which had previously led to the disintegration of the band (then called “Japan”) in 1982. Mick Karn, Steve Jansen and Richard Barbieri were all in favour of reusing the Japan name in order to increase the album’s chances of hitting the mainstream, but singer David Sylvian, who was notoriously controlling during the Japan days, chose a different name regardless. In the end, the album only made it to #24 on the UK Album Chart, and the band split up shortly after.
Musically, the album is a far cry from anything Japan did. It is much less commercial, relying more heavily on sparse instrumentation and atmospheric electronics and percussion, making it musically much more closely related to Sylvian’s solo material than Japan’s. The group hired a number of other musicians to play on the album such as saxophonist Gary Barnacle and guitarist Bill Nelson.
In 2003, the album was re-released (alongside Japan’s Gentlemen Take Polaroids, Tin Drum and Oil on Canvas and David Sylvian’s early solo work), now including the B-side, “I Drink to Forget” as a bonus track, the only other song they released under the Rain Tree Crow name.
“Rain Tree Crow” Q&A
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What have the artists said about the making of the album?
Keyboardist Richard Barbieri spoke about the process in a 2021 interview:
When Steve [Jansen] and I were doing David [Sylvian]’s tour in 1988 […] Mick [Karn] came to one of the shows, and then soon after he started talking about, “wouldn’t it be good if- we should try and do something.”
[…] It was all a bit unpleasant in the ending, but during the recording we did really enjoy it and related to each other as friends. It was a really nice experience. […] We never got bored of working with each other because we were always interested, because we were always excited to hear what someone was gonna do. I think we liked what each other did.
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Why did the band choose not to use the Japan name?
David Sylvian was keen to distance himself from the name, as Richard Barbieri recalled in 2021:
David had a kind of blueprint for the album and he wrote us all letters, which was a bit strange, sort of laying out his kind of conditions, almost, for wanting to do this, and how he didn’t want to rely on the name “Japan”, how he wanted it to be disassociated from the whole industry, from trying to be commercial. […] I couldn’t see the point in not calling it “Japan”. It would’ve made sense to me to call it “Japan”; it’s just Japan making different music.
We ran out of money from a massive budget towards the end of the album, and at one point Virgin said, “well look, we’ll give you some more money if you just call the project "Japan”."
Album Credits
