Lookaftering

Description

For an artist’s second album to appear 35 years on from their debut suggests an unprecedented case of writer’s block, but Vashti Bunyan can at least point to mitigating circumstances. An acolyte of Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham, Bunyan recorded one of British folk’s great lost works, 1970’s Just Another Diamond Day. That record’s re-release and subsequent glowing reappraisal has led to a new generation of celebrity fans--Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom, Four Tet--and with Lookaftering, a new suite of songs as beautiful as anything that came before. Bunyan’s voice is high, stately and choiral, somewhat akin to Nico, had she been born not in Cologne, but some verdant English meadow. Accordingly, it’s the perfect vehicle for these dainty, pastoral sing-songs. A number of musicians guest here: Devendra Banhart plays steel acoustic guitar on "Wayward", while Joanna Newsom contributes restrained but elegant harp to "If I Were" and "Against The Sky". But their performances are restrained and supportive, never threatening to overwhelm Bunyan’s florid, fragile nursery rhymes. A quietly terrific return; consider this a case of writer’s block shaken.-Louis Pattison