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Features Disc of the day
Vashti Bunyan
Just Another Diamond Day
(Philips, 1970)
Lullabies for life, born on the back of a baker's van.
Sat in the garden over the Glastonbury weekend, bare feet in the grass, and a pint of iced water by my side, I found myself transported back to a weird Romantic arcadia of ancient lore, the lost estate of "visionary music" as chronicled in Rob Young's Electric Eden, his magical exploration of transcendent 20th Century British 'folk' music. The book unearths many weird sonic theurgists, from the pagan melancholy of Celtic tone poets Arnold Bax, John Ireland and Peter Warlock to troubled prophets of rotting paradise, Comus, Spirogyra and Bill Fay; but on this sunny day I found myself most affected by Young's fresh retelling of the story behind Vashti Bunyan's dreamlike 1970 album debut. Like so many tales from the mythic margins of British folk, the making of Just Another Diamond Day is a fuzzy fable shrouded in mystery, half truths and legend, thanks in part to Bunyan's own reluctance to reveal all the personal details of a long-gone time. Fans of the delicate, filiform folk narratives on ...Diamond Day know something of the tale, of how one-time '60s pop singer Vashti, her companion Robert Lewis and her dog Blue, fled London for the Outer Hebrides in 1968, in an old green delivery wagon pulled by Bess the horse. Lewis kept a diary, Vashti wrote these songs. The full account of their hardships, misfortunes and travails should be left to the book but a few details are worth retelling. As Young rightly points out, Vashti's songs resemble lullabies, "charms to ward off danger and dread in the midst of adversity". Turns out that the majority of these jolly, delicate fairy tales were written, says Vashti, "in the worst bits of industrial England... as a way to keep the dream alive." Vashti recorded the songs with Joe Boyd in late '69, after just finding out she was pregnant. These talismanic lullabies were now being sung in a soft, intimate night-time hush, a comforting balm for both mother-to-be and the child inside. Playing the album again, with that added knowledge, transformed an already magical album into something unbearably poignant. I must admit that my eyes were a little damp.
Andrew Male
Posted by Ross_Bennett at 6:00 AM GMT 02/07/2010
Further Listening
Vashti Bunyan – Lookaftering (Fatcat, 2005)
Donovan – A Gift From A Flower To A Garden (Pye, 1968)
Devendra Banhart – Oh Me Oh My (Young God, 2002)
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Landscape - From The Tea-rooms Of Mars… To The Hell-holes Of Uranus
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Causa Sui - Summer Sessions Vol 1-3
Epic Danish jams, for when the neighbours get you down.
6:00 AM GMT 12/05/2011
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A wonderful album. Soulful and gentle like a soft wind.
Posted by carneham at 6:44 PM GMT 27/07/2010 Report Abuse
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