Lookaftering

Vashti Bunyan | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 25, 2005)
• Original Release Date: 2005
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Dicristina Stair Builders
• ASIN: B000B5S826
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #42,676 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #96 in Music > Folk > British & Celtic Folk > British Folk

Editorial Reviews

Slate, October 25, 2005

...offers many of the charms of her debut...still hushed and otherworldly; her voice still airily affecting...

...her allure stems from the fact that she sounds too timeless to be bound by any one particular era.

... with the arrival of her stunning second album, Vashti Bunyan need no longer worry about her music going unheard.

Product Description

Much has been made of Vashti Bunyan's 1969 unheard-at-the-time Just Another Diamond Day. Produced by Joe Boyd, it featured the singer and songwriter backed by a small string quartet. Discouraged by the sleazy ethics of the music biz, she retired and concentrated on raising a family, gardening, and other productive matters. The set was re-released on CD in 2000, and has been rightfully heralded as a classic by virtually everyone who has heard it. Sought out, she re-entered the arena, worked and collaborated with Devendra Banhart and Simon Raymonde, and was the featured vocalist on Animal Collective's fine Prospect Hummer EP. Thirty-six years later, Lookaftering, Bunyan's second album, was released by Fat Cat. Produced by post-classical composer and atmosphere impresario Max Richter -- who co-arranged the set with Bunyan -- it features many of her collaborators, including Banhart, Joanna Newsome, Adem, Adam Price, Robert Kirby (who arranged the strings on her first record as well as Nick Drake's albums), Otto Hauser, and Kevin Barker (Espers/Currituck County). This is not just some neo-acid folk gathering of the stars, however. Bunyan's voice and songs are always center stage, and Richter's production is always subtle, creating suitable, unintrusive backdrops for that magical sound that comes from her mouth to slip from the ether into sound. There is a slight bit of quavering in her grain now, but it's beautiful as ever. Where Just Another Diamond Day concentrated on living an idyllic life as a part of nature and creation itself, Lookaftering is a tale of doing just that, looking after children, lovers, friends, surroundings, and the changes in life like living and dying. Her melodies are delicate, inviting, and delicate without the least bit of twee posturing. Richter's restraint in adding the right touch of piano and glockenspiel here, the precise use of recorders there, and Newsome's harp playing all slip and shimmer in the backdrop as Bunyan's voice and fingerpicked guitar walk softly through her songs. On "Wayward" she sings, "Didn't want to be the one, the one who's left behind/While the other one goes out to life and comes back home to find me...I wanted to be the one with road dust on my boots/And a single silver earring and a suitcase full of notes/And a band of wayward children with their fathers left behind," but in either sense she finds "world without ending." There's no regret in these songs, just the acceptance of life on its own terms, and the magic found therein. Lookaftering is indescribably beautiful, whether the setting is a Fender Rhodes or harp and dulcimer such as on "If I Were," kissed by sparse strings, or the recorders and guitars that frame her voice in their center, singing about the process of living, asking questions, and being content to live in between. Lookaftering is a gorgeously considered, stunningly and sensitively crafted album by an artist who is truly outside of all fashion, all time, and even space. Without the technological trappings, this album, timeless and spaceless as it is, could have been made 300 years ago, but that it was made in the 21st century blesses you even more. It's simply unlike anything else out there -- except perhaps Just Another Diamond Day. What a welcome return. Though her collaborators dream of making recordings this pure, full of whispery strangeness, and unselfconscious charm, Bunyan is as singular and out-of-the-box an artist as there is. Welcome back. ~ Thom Jurek, Rovi

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Legend of Vashti Returns, October 28, 2005

By 

Juan Mobili (Valley Cottage, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lookaftering (Audio CD)

Back in the mid-Sixties, after quitting art school to pursue music, Vashti met Andrew Loog Oldham and recorded a single -written by Jagger/Richards of all people- for Decca. Although reviews compare Marianne Faithful' and even went as far as labeling her a "female Bob Dylan," sales were minimal and Decca decided not to invest on releasing further material.

The story goes that Bunyan, dejected by the experience, bought a horse and cart and set off for a commune that Donovan founded on the Isle of Skye. Although she was not to remain there long, that experience gave birth to the core material that would become "Just Another Diamond Day," backed by members of Incredible String Band and Fairport Convention, and produced by Joe Boyd.

Once again, success eluded her -critics, even the ones who praised it, did not pay for their copy- and this time was off to Ireland, to live life a life away from music and raise a family.

Thirty-five years after releasing her debut album, Vashti returns with her new solo work, an album that manages to be faithful to the sound and mood that permeated her 1969 "Just Another Diamond Day", and at the same time, present the work of a mature artist, still pastoral yet it is mature woman speaking. Evocative, even spiritual in a contemplative way.

"Lookaftering" was co-produced with Max Richter, who also co-wrote the arrangements. Wisely anchored around Vashti's voice, acoustic guitar and Richter's these songs just fall down like fine rain over you, such is the subtlety of their touch.

At different times accompanied by Joanna Newsom, Kevin Barker from Espers, ex-Four Tet's Adem, and Devendra Banhart, Bunyan weaves the tales of what Adrienne Rich has called a "difficult, ordinary happiness," songs of mothering or upon the death of her brother, or joys you stumbled on possibly every day.

Every song has also being thoughtfully arranged, whether the choice is an intimate and sparse sound, require the warmth of an oboe, or a strings quartet. "Same But Different," "Against The Sky," "If I Were," "Wayward" -and also its hummed coda, at the end- or Brother are gems. gems of the quiet kind, music that may take to early sunny mornings by yourself.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars perfect, November 19, 2005

By 

svf - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lookaftering (Audio CD)

wow... this one exceeded my very high expectations... incredibly beautiful, delicate, elegant songs perfectly arranged and produced (by the amazing Max Richter) with minimal but gorgeous mostly-acoustic accompaniment. I think Vashti even tops her once-forgotten, now classic Just Another Diamond Day here. Only 35 minutes or so, but not a single note is wasted filler here.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Worth the Wait !, November 15, 2005

By 

Robert Burns (Tallahassee, Florida United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lookaftering (Audio CD)

As you may have noticed, no one has given this release less than 5 stars. I could go on for pages giving the reasons for this but instead I'll just reccomend listening to the audio samples.In a year full of of great new albums, "Lookaftering" shines w/ indescribable beauty. This album may go down in history as being as beloved as "J.A.D.D.".Let's all keep our fingers crossed that it's not another 35 years before Vashti's next.