Secrets of the beehive (1987): a David Sylvian's masterpiece

David Sylvian and Scott Walker shared more than a few traits. Both were blessed with beautiful faces that obscured the true nature and depth of their personality and work - at least initially. Both grew up in public as pop stars then struggled to shed that initial image as they and their work matured. This was the classic conundrum; the adolescent audience fell in love with the artist at a certain stage and wanted the artist to stay within that image for a lifetime.

Many Walker fans wanted him to remain the blond fallen angel of My Ship Is Comin' In and Jackie. Many Sylvian fans wanted him preserved as the blond, perfectly made-up neurotic boy outsider of Quiet Life and Ghosts. With Secrets Of The Beehive, Sylvian shed both the remainders of that lingering audience and channeled some of the grandiosity of Walker's string-laden, late-60s work. Indeed, one song from the Secrets Of The Beehive sessions, Ride, had been written with Walker in mind and Orpheus shared a title with the song Walker had released some 20 years earlier.

With its predominately crepuscular, acoustic timbre - even the electronics seemed like real, as yet undiscovered instruments - Secrets Of The Beehive sounded unlike anything else released that year and as such remains a timeless classic. Sylvian was now an 'album artist' and the poor chart placing of the LP's singles - the hymn-like Let The Happiness In and the sweeping, cinematic sea­spray of Orpheus - reflected this.

But this was something Sylvian was surely comfortable with; he loved the work of Nick Drake and Joni Mitchell, both consummate album artists themselves, and their influence runs through this record like a grain through wood.

Tellingly, Sylvian's face was absent from the cover. Like Walker in the late 60s, Sylvian's 80s trio of solo albums reflect the artist at his most prolific. "It's just a batch of songs that sort of arrived and fell in my lap," David has explained. "I recognized that there was a beauty to the material and it already felt to me like something I had heard before... It felt like a gift."