Get To Know A Top 10: June 2018 Thread - Jimmy Dread

[Repo]

[baystateoftheart]

Well, I've thoroughly enjoyed this month's selection, and the title couldn't be a more perfect encapsulation of what this chart is all about. Being all from a unified genre and (for the most part) aesthetic, the records are bleeding together in my mind, despite my best efforts to summon distinct thoughts on each. So I'll just leave ratings and a rough ranking here. All are new to me except for the asterisks.

1. Just Another Diamond Day - Vashti Bunyan 4.5/5*
2. The Blue Trees - Gorky's Zygotic Mynci 4/5
3. Bryter Layter - Nick Drake 4/5*
4. Morning Way - Trader Horne 4/5
5. Songs For The Gentle Man - Bridget St John 4/5
6. Stargazer - Shelagh McDonald 4/5
7. Death And The Lady - Michael Raven & Joan Mills 3.5/5
8. Frost And Fire: A Calendar Of Ritual And Magical Songs - The Watersons 3.5/5
9. Teulu Yncl Sam - Sidan 3.5/5
10. Visions Of The Country - Robbie Basho 3.5/5

@ everyone else, which album of this batch was the standout for you? My favorite find was the Gorky's album. Not a weak track, beautiful melodies, and just the right length to leave me wanting more. I'd like to delve into the rest of their discography sometime soon. I understand that The Blue Trees might be a bit of a stylistic outlier for them, but which album would people recommend checking out next?
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[RoundTheBend]

1. Bryter Layter - Nick Drake
Very good album. Was curious as to this choice over Five Leaves Left or Pink Moon. Probably personal reasons. Those two speak to me more somehow, but this is a fine choice. One of the few I've heard before.

2. Stargazer - Shelagh McDonald
I wasn't able to find this on Spotify, YouTube, or Google Music, but was impressed by the arrangement on the title track. Somehow I thought of Joanna Newsom, even if a stretch (for that song at least). Then I listened to a few tracks off what was on Spotify and she's a great listen. Lively and honest. Thanks for the introduction. This is stuff I could listen to all day. On the other recordings she's got some cool blues songs as well.

3. Teulu Yncl Sam - Sidan
Is this in Welsh? This is so awesome for me. I've never heard Welsh. My grandpa, I never met (died at 40), is from Swansea and this is super neat to hear Welsh being sung. Musically it sounded like typical 70s music, but the vocals were superb/near angelic.

4. The Blue Trees - Gorky's Zygotic Mynci
This is also beautifully written/arranged. Reminds me a tad of Leo Kottke, yet a warmth I remember from the O' Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack. It's not obvious spiritual music, but still has that spiritual warmth in This Summer's Been Good From The Start. Love the recording style of the piano. Then that organ in Foot and Mouth (disease?) is mesmerizing.


5. Morning Way - Trader Horne
I also can't help but see connections to old troubadour music. The flute and harpsichord especially, but even the overall feel of it. Also the lyrical content of it. Dig it.

6. Frost And Fire: A Calendar Of Ritual And Magical Songs - The Watersons
Missing from Spotify and Google Play

7. Just Another Diamond Day - Vashti Bunyan
La-lalala-la. I want to play with flowers in meadow. She has an intimate voice. Lilly Pond was a cute rendition of a lullaby.

8. Visions Of The Country - Robbie Basho
Missing from Spotify and Google Play

9. Songs For The Gentle Man - Bridget St. John
Near harp sounding guitar at times and flute (oboe too?)... yes please. She has a nice soothing alto voice. Her vocal style reminded me a bit of Nico... but I like her better. The Pebble and the Man has quite the vocal performance on many different levels. The guitar sometimes sounds like a harpsichord.. really cool arrangements.

10. Death And The Lady - Michael Raven & Joan Mills
Beautiful guitar tone and a smooth piercing vocal. Lisa Lan reminded me a bit of Leo Kottke's playing as well. Very good.


I must admit I only got a chance to listen to 2 or three songs of each of these albums, but even so all had a very lilting beauty - and a motion of travel and peace. Took me to another place for reals.

Overall I can see why these selections work beautifully for a travel along the countryside. Well curated, Jimmy!

I also could see this be a nice "soundtrack" to a nice weekend getaway in a cabin or the like... warm fire cracklin' in the background. This over Fleet Foxes a million billion times over.

You have any of this on wax? I imagine all of those records would sound amazing on a good setup.

[RoundTheBend]

[baystateoftheart]

[RoundTheBend]

[Jameth]

Reviving this thread because this is a chart that I’ve been wanting/meaning to thoroughly go through for a long time now. If I’m not mistaken, this chart is how I discovered this site, as I was searching for some recs to really delve into folk. I never got around to it, since my listening seems to fly around all over the place, but I’m coming back to this and plan to stay awhile. I might be talking to myself here, but that’s okay.

Bryter Layter

I’m glad this one was included. I’ve owned all three of his records for years, but never listened to this one. I think deep down, I enjoyed the thought that I always would have a new Drake album to listen to. But, it was time.

My initial, overall impression of the album is that the production by Boyd was heavy handed. On some tracks, it’s mildly distracting, but on “Hazy Jane II”, it verges on infuriating. Drake’s guitar is all but completely buried, and Pegg and Mattacks are...I don’t know what they’re doing. Pegg is playing the same sort of plodding bass line that he’d play on Fairport tracks. It’s a disappointing track, but the album gets much better from there.

Tracks 3-5, each one seems lovelier than the last. Pegg really nails his bass parts on “Hazy Jane I”. The title track seems like an unfinished piece that never goes anywhere. I read that Drake originally intended for an instrumental to open and close both sides of the album, but one was cut. Maybe this piece would have played off the one that was cut, I don’t know.

The album finishes strong after that. Maybe the jazz treatment given to “Poor Boy” could have been better done, but it works. “Sunday” is gorgeous, and probably my favorite track on the album.

There are some great tracks here, but I don’t think this album is going to overtake the other two for me. It’s obvious why Drake told Boyd that he just wanted to record his guitar when he went back to Island to record Pink Moon. As for Drake’s part, he probably spent the next two years honing his craft, because his guitar work here doesn’t seem to be as sophisticated as it is on Pink Moon. Maybe it’s just because I can’t hear him half the time.

Stargazer

Fantastic album. “Lonely King”, “Dowie Dens Of Yarrow”, “Canadian Man”, “Odyssey”, and “Stargazer” are some of the best folk songs I’ve heard. “Dowie Dens Of Yarrow” is actually the closest I’ve ever heard a track get to sounding as if it’s off Liege. It probably helps that it seems to be Mattacks playing in the same style he used on tracks like “Reyardine”, but McDonald’s delivery is superb.

She really does have an excellent voice, and I get the Denny comparisons. Though, on the first side she seems to sing more in Joni’s range and style, before sounding closer to Denny as the album progresses. It’s also interesting to see two albums at the top that are prominently backed by members of Fairport.

This one’s a must buy, and my favorite so far. Still eight albums ahead.

[Jimmy Dread]

One thing I've learnt from these threads is that unless the chart maker engages they quickly get buried, so a lesson there for all. But I'm really glad someone's taken the trouble to leave such a deep analysis on a couple of these albums, both of which mean a lot to me for various reasons. I've always been proud of this folk chart - a true labour of love, much like my reggae and indie-pop ones (the latter long overdue an update) - which has changed a little since this thread last featured, specifically with the inclusion of...


Cruel Sister by Pentangle

But back to Bryter Layter. I could write and write about this album and what it's done for me over the years, and whilst it wasn't the first Nick album I listened to in its entirety (the first CD I got was the Way To Blue compy, and I purposely went for the studio albums after that in order of release) it's the one that contains my all-time favourite Nick moment, as well as the song that first exposed me to his genius in "Northern Sky". For a teenage townie, it was always the album that always transported me away from the humdrum of a Surrey suburb and into the countryside; into a rural - but not archaic - world of nature. A world of daisy-filled meadows and ploughed fields, of playing pooh sticks in streams under moonbeams, of the church down some winding single-track road ringing out wedding bells, of the village shop that only stocked loose tobacco and homemade produce, of simple times and wind chimes, of a childhood long since forgotten, of beauty. Daft as it is to say I've always seen it as his most English album, and perhaps that's why it resonates with me more than anything else he ever did. The instrumentals are all outstandingly atmospheric, "Fly" sounds like a hymn, "Chime Of A City Clock" sounds like a Soho pre-the strip bars with clouds of smoke coming out the myriad of jazz clubs that perhaps you could almost imagine "Poor Boy" emanating from. And as for "Northern Sky" - well, it's quite possibly one of those 'perfect' songs us mere mortals only dream about writing, as well as illustrating the dichotomy between a hopelessly romantic and romantically hopeless Nick. The line "would you love me through the winter/would you love me 'til I'm dead" could possibly be - aside from "now we rise/and we are everywhere" - the most poignant lyric he ever wrote.

Personally, I'm always puzzled by all the adulation Pink Moon gets compared to Bryter Layter and Five Leaves Left. It's an outstanding album, true - but then all of Nick's albums are. Does it get the postmortem kudos reserved for 'that tragic final LP' considering his passing? Possibly - and especially when one considers the lyrics to "From The Morning". Does an unaccompanied Nick sound more pained and possibly a more engaging, intimate listen? Almost certainly - but I personally adore Robert Kirby's arrangements. Or - controversially - is the fragile, depressed, pained Nick of Pink Moon a bigger draw than the contented, driven and optimistic songwriter of his previous two albums? Maybe us human beings are just a bunch of shits. And fuck knows it's far harder to write a happy song than a sad one.

Regardless of your take, Nick has what I consider to be the most perfect discography of any artist, and for me personally Bryter Layter is the absolute epitome of it. I think it should be required listening for anyone who yearns to escape from a Home Counties cul-de-sac.
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[Hayden]

[Skinny]

Everything Jimmy said re: Nick Drake's discography is pretty true. It is the closest to perfect. Any one could be the best. Depending on day or season. But BL and PM are usually the top two.
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