Biography: David Sylvian, born David Alan Batt, is an English singer-songwriter, musician and film director who came to prominence in the late 1970s as the lead vocalist and main songwriter in the group Japan. On his solo records of the '80s, Sylvian's explorations in music took him from the pop-funk, stylish jazz and windswept exotica of 1984's Brilliant Trees; the ambient landscapes and epic ballads of 1985's Gone to Earth; and the romantic orchestrations of 1987's Secrets of the Beehive.