David Sylvian's journey from pretty pop idol to the outer reaches of the avant-garde is equalled by few other musicians: the late great Scott Walker for one, Julie Driscoll/Tippetts perhaps another. Sylvian (born Dave Batt) found huge success with the androgynous pop group Japan in the late 1970s and early 80s, but following their split, began a long voyage into the experimental realm with a series of increasingly challenging solo albums, shedding much of his original audience along the way (as Walker did).

It's a measure of both the respect he commands and his openness to new ideas that throughout his career, Sylvian has managed to attract the services of first-rate musicians such as Kenny Wheeler, Holger Czukay, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Jon Hassell, Robert Fripp, Bill Nelson, David Torn, Mark Isham and Danny Thomson, and these two albums see him rounding up a number of free-music titans, notably Derek Bailey, Evan Parker and Keith Rowe.

Blemish, the first album made after his split with Virgin Records, was originally released online, then as a very limited LP and CD; making this superb-sounding vinyl reissue extremely welcome. It's a starkly beautiful record, entirely improvised with Bailey and, unusually for Sylvian, lyrically and vocally direct (both his career and personal life were unravelling at the time), with Bailey's jarring, percussive plucking and his feedback drones providing the perfect accompaniment to the singer's anguish.

In fact, the late guitarist's extraordinary playing (given added texture by Fennesz's electronic manipulations) is jaw-dropping in its inventiveness, virtuosity and sensitivity. Bailey and Sylvian made truly beautiful music together, and it's a pity they didn’t make more of it.

Manafon, recorded with a larger cast over a longer period of time, feels more diffuse, less focused, but no less forbidding. Again, the collaborators – principally Rowe, Parker and Fennesz – are well-chosen; they provide suitably spiky yet restrained and sympathetic improvised backing for Sylvian's musings (calling them ‘songs’ feels like a bit of a stretch), the best of which is the 11-minute album centrepiece ‘The Greatest Living Englishman’.

Again, an appreciated (and splendid-sounding) reissue for a now-very-pricey original.