Pop stars change image all the time, but few have the guts to actually change the substance of what they do.| The fact that he did a 180-degree turnabout, without once looking back, is but one of the things that bears out the uniqueness of David Sylvian.

Sylvian, who's just released Dead Bees on a Cake, his first solo album in more than five years, walked away from a career as one of Britain's most adored pin-up boys when he split from the lipstick jockeys in New Romantic leaders Japan in 1982. He said it was for the music -- and while that's usually as believable as a "Brooklyn Bridge for sale" banner, Sylvian wasn't kidding, as he proved over the next decade on collaborations with folks like Robert Fripp, Ryuichi Sakamoto and Can's Holger Czukay.

"I'm sure the perception that I'm a dabbler still exists to some degree, but the people I actually work with know my sincerity and commitment are there," says Sylvian. "My goal was always to put myself into environments that had the potential to stretch me ... and I found all of those collaborations very rewarding on a number of levels, even when the results weren't all that strong in the end."

The singer, who now lives in California's wine country with his wife, former Prince protegee Ingrid Chavez, says that leaving the limelight was "the easiest thing in the world" for him, since he never cared much for the attention anyway. In recent times, he's shelved some of his more experimental musical ideas -- as evidenced by the relatively concise structure of Dead Bees on a Cake. But that doesn't mean he's stopped exploring altogether: It's just that these days, Sylvian's journeys are more of the inward nature.

"Although it might sound pretentious to say so, I'd been on a spiritual quest for some time when I met a series of teachers who opened a great number of doors for me," he says. "Much of it is rooted in Hinduism, but it also incorporates a number of other things, things that lead to greater love."

That theme recurs throughout Dead Bees on a Cake, amorphously in songs like "I Surrender" and quite clearly on devotional-sounding pieces such as "Krishna Blue" and "Praise" (which incorporates vocals from one of the aforementioned teachers, a woman named Shree Ma). "Being in her presence would entail listening to Indian holy music, so when it came to writing pieces about that part of my life, I wanted to incorporate that sound into the songs," Sylvian says. "There's been such a great sense of irony in music of late and that really doesn't allow for a commitment to be made.

"I'm not looking to be dogmatic in my work, but I have learned a great deal in the past five years by taking a real stand for the first time in my life. I feel I've been rewarded amply for doing that."

DAVID SPRAGUE(April 8, 1999)