David Sylvian

I've recently got into Elbow and am absolutely loving them, I think I've collected their entire output in the last month but just missed the Tour, a truly great band.
If you are into Scattered Black and Whites, Fugitive Motel, Switching Off, Great Expectations, have a listen to David Sylvian, similar sort of thing.

Secrets of the Beehive, Gone to Earth and Dead Bees on a Cake are all a good place to start, the later albums are darker but still worth a listen.

Mmmmm, dark. I like dark music.

David Sylvian - for me a bit hit and miss, but that is mainly because of his musically adventurous nature. Japan were great, and I have a real soft spot for his first solo album "Brilliant Trees". As you say, "Gone To Earth" (featuring some stellar guitar from Fripp and Bill Nelson) is well worth a listen. My other fave is "Blemish" which is pretty much the opposite to the lush GTE. Austere, bleak but not quite hopeless, more sonic sculpture than song, Blemish is a masterpiece IMO.

I like Brilliant Trees as well, and Blemish, have you heard the Blemish remix album, that's good. If you like Blemish there's another after that called Manafon which is in a similar vein. Quite bleak, almost hopeless at times but kind of reassuring in a weird way.
For me Elbow are nearer to this left field, Eno, Fripp, Sylvian etc than U2, Genisis, and the rest. Elbow just happen to be mainstream but are actually quite weird. Thankfully.

I used to be a David Sylvian obsessive. I loved Japan as a teenager, saw them live at Hammersmith and saw him play a solo show in the mid-nineties. His music was everything to me. Brilliant Trees '84, Gone To Earth '86, and Secrets of the Beehive '87 were deeply wonderful, other-worldly albums that I played to death.
Then (barring collaborations and ambient excursions) there was a gap. A very long gap due, and I quote, to the fact that he felt he 'couldn't write anything of any real worth'. Unfortunately when Dead Bees On A Cake finally turned up in 1999 I couldn't help but feel that statement still held.
After much effort to the contrary, I eventually had to admit that DBOAC was a crushing disappointment. It seemed to vear from weary, dated mysteriousness to just downright pretentious attempted artiness. Don't feel too much better about Blemish of Manafon I'm afraid.
Something he used to have just isn't there anymore

I must say I absolutely loved Dead Bees On A Cake.......But of course Secrets of the Beehive is my all-time favourite album of his.I like some of the Japan stuff as well.And the Rain Tree Cow album also sounds great.But his last two albums Blemish and Manofon are simply way too avant-garde/experimental for me.I don't think I'll ever get into them.....