Starsailor

Tim Buckley | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 5, 1991)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Rhino / Wea
• ASIN: B00000E78G
• In-Print Editions: Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #258,072 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Originally released in 1970, Starsailor is the most unique and uncompromising release of Tim Buckley's brief but productive career. Combining jazz and avant-garde elements with folk-rock and Buckley's acrobatic vocal performances, Starsailor is one of the most experimental singer-songwriter albums of all time. Though it was a commercial failure at the time of its release, Starsailor has since become a sought after cult classic. Deluxe 180 gram vinyl reissue. --This text refers to the Vinyl edition.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Somebody Please Re-Issue, March 19, 2005

By 

Laurence Upton (Wilts, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Starsailor (Audio CD)

Although it sometimes seems that there are more albums re-issued on CDs than ever could have been available on vinyl in the first place, there are a few notable albums for which no CD version is available. The recent overhaul of the Neil Young catalogue righted a few wrongs, but key albums by Albert Ayler, Alice Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Terry Riley and Toru Takemitsu remain undigitised, not to mention a hole slew of Motown albums. I particularly mourn the absence of Annette Peacock's I'm The One and Tim Buckley's albums Blue Afternoon and Starsailor.

However, Starsailor (and Blue Afternoon) had come out in America on Rhino in 1989 but had quickly disappeared in some kind of legal wrangle involving Frank Zappa's Straight/Bizarre labels, for which the album had originally been recorded in 1970. 

At its centre lies the starkly brilliant Song To The Siren, best known in its wonderful incarnation by This Mortal Coil, whose watery evocation of the tragic tidal pull of the sirens chillingly prefigures the premature death by drowning of his son Jeff Buckley in Memphis's Mississippi River. Elsewhere Tim's inspired vocal heights are matched by his own 12-sring accompaniment; the extraordinary, sympathetically fractured guitar and elemental keyboards of Lee Underwood; the deathless imploding bass of John Balkin; the Miles-inspired wind instruments of Buzz and Bunk Gardner and Maury Baker's traps and tympani. At times light and celebratory, and at other times harrowing and deeply primal these are songs that find unique territory to stake out and claim.

If the previous album, Lorca, sounds as if it is out on the edge looking for a foothold, on this album, that foothold has been found, and the ideas fully realised

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars SO GOOD IT ALMOST RUINS ALL OTHER MUSIC, January 12, 2005

By 

David Wightman - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Starsailor (Audio CD)

It is a complete injustice to Tim Buckleys memory that this album is unavailable. I mean, we can buy cds of stuff that he never intended for release but we can't buy this which he considered, and quite rightly, his greatest achievement. Because of legal hassles we are denied the beauty of Starsailor.
Well not quite denied, we could pay ridiculous amounts for one of those rare cds that are out there or we could track down the vinyl.
I managed to download the album by dubious but not immoral means, (surely it is more immoral for the music to die than to be heard). I recommend you do the same. Once you've heard this album then all other music will sound dull in comparison.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars buckley's greatest work, September 13, 2006

By 

J. R. P. Wigman "Hans Wigman" (Netherlands) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Starsailor (Audio CD)

Tim Buckley travelled along a lot of musical paths, and some of these travels resulted in glorious records. "Happy/sad" is the album I love best, but "Starsailor", while more difficult to get into, is very likely the artistical high point of his career.
I should mention that I'm not totally convinced of the contributions of Lee Underwood to Buckley's records: his shadow looms heavily over a lot of Buckley's work and as he's not the genius Buckley was, his presence sometimes is a bit much, and this holds true for "Starsailor" as well. On the other hand, all other contributors to this album deserve a lot of praise for outstanding work.
I find side one (with songs like Come here woman and Moulin Rouge) the weaker of the two, but side two can't be faulted. Suberbly imaginative and experimental songs flow in a well chosen order, leaving the listener completely stunned.
Most famous of course is "Song to the Siren" which doesn't need any introduction. Nevertheless, it's not the greatest song on the record. It's "Starsailor" itself. What an amazing piece of experimental work it is! The words of a great poem ("I am a bee out in the fields of winter ....") are twisted and turned in a swirl of Buckley voices, giving the song an otherworldly atmosphere. I feel that there are some ways out of the stalemate of the "pop/rock-format" which has been milked totally dry and one of them is signposted by this Tim Buckley song.
A lot of people reviewing this album seem to focus on songs like "Song to the Siren". I'm telling you that the real treasure lies in the song that gives the album its name.
Whenever this album is available again snap it up like lightning, because this is one of the truly great modern records.