The Album Review Club - Week #191 (page 1286) - Harlequin Dream - Boy & Bear

FIVE LEAVES LEFT NICK DRAKE

I can’t remember the first time I heard Nick Drake, I know my elder brother had the Island records sampler ‘Nice Enough or Eat’ which contained the track ‘Time has Told Me’ but I don’t think he played the ND track much preferring bands like King Crimson and Spooky Tooth.
I’m glad @GoatersLeftShin chose an ND album as he was on my list too.
He’s an artist that deserves to be heard and this is a classic album.

I love singer songwriters and apart from Nicks lovely voice and superb guitar playing you’ve got lots of varied instruments on different tracks.


9/10
 
Ironically, or fittingly or just coincidentally I found myself in Cambridge last Wednesday when this album dropped. To be more accurate we were eating our picnic in a Morrison’s carpark in Kettering but it did mean that we could listen to it on the final stretch along the gloriously pastoral A14 (it isn’t).

Not that I knew at that point that Nick Drake had studied at Cambridge. I didn’t actually find that out till Sunday morning when I decided to look him up on Wikipedia. A bit of an opportunity missed then to spot his face amongst the assorted alumni adorning the walls of the bar in the University owned accommodation we were in. We did spot Miriam Margoyles, Stephen Fry, Zadie Smith and lots of people we thought we should recognise.

There’s a bucolic charm to bits of Cambridge (not the A14) that the music of Nick Drake is probably well suited to. My musical musings though were more along the lines of wondering about Syd Barrett and Grantchester Meadows and on our last day, Friday making sure I left town with a vinyl copy of Suede’s new album (earning rave reviews fellas).

Disappointingly neither Nick Drake or Syd Barrett got a mention from the young chap steering our punt up (and back down) the river.

Such meanderings aside what about Nick Drake then? I remember listening to him once before, I can’t remember which album but no doubt driven by yet another article proclaiming his genius and my fear of missing out. That previous dalliance obviously didn’t engage me sufficiently.

It’s almost a whole subsector of singer songwriters itself, the ones who weren’t appreciated at the time for the sensitive and talented young men (or women) they are only to be posthumously rediscovered. Or if they were lucky like Bill Fay to still be alive and pushed back into some sort of prominence by an acolyte.

You either like these rediscovered geniuses or you don’t and if you don’t, well no worries there’ll be another one along next month. It seems fair to say though that Nick Drake sits atop a big pile in the almost universal praise his slim body or works garner. I’ve listened to it all over the past few days and…

Well, I feel like a bit of a heretic. Thoughts of the emperor’s new clothes are probably going a bit too far. And listening to him did give me a clue as to where Ryley Walker might have got his influences from (just googled it and right enough Nick Drake is mentioned, along with Genesis oddly enough). Walker is someone I was briefly enamoured with but grew a little weary of on recordings post Primrose Green.

Back to Nick Drake. I liked some of the arrangements on this record, the strings more than the flute and I was interested to read that they were provided by one of his friends. But strip them away and you’re left with a fairly ordinary suite of songs sung by a man who doesn’t sound as though he believed in himself. And ironically for me, this album felt one paced but unlike some of the apparently one paced albums I’ve defended this one has hardly got out of bed and put it’s slippers on so it could be said it’s not even one paced. Can an album be non-paced?

I’m well against the grain I know and really this is something I should like, being a bit of a sucker for introspective and melancholy musing. But it didn’t move me. Given the best bits are where the underlying soporific sounds are lifted by the arrangements I really should split the score between Nick Drake and Robert Kirby (with an honourable mention to Harry Robertson for River Man). The arrangements lift it from a 5 to a 6 but when it comes to fawning over a much neglected or rediscovered genius, I’ll wait for the next one.
 
denislawsbackheel said:
Loved those Samplers!
Nice Enough to Eat
Fill Your Head With Rock
The Rock Machine Turns You On
Bumpers
Picnic
Still have a few of them on vinyl
Click to expand...
My Dad had Nice Enough To Eat but my favourite as a kid was that yellow Bumpers album!!! Absolutely loved the giant trainer on the front haha
 
GornikDaze said:
Enjoyed the guitar on this weeks pick more than anything. Interesting to get @Bill Walker’s musical take on this in his review.

Overall I did find it a tad on the dark/melancholy side which others have mentioned. The strings too were a bit overdone for me. That said, it’s still a solid 7/10. If I have the time to stick with it I think it would move up higher.

Sad to see the rest of the comments about his life.
Click to expand...

Unrelated, but generally related, give yourself a spin of Ruins by Wolf People. A bit if Kasabian had a love child with Jethro Tull, while Josh Homme watched through the window.
 
A TROUBLED CURE FOR A TROUBLED MIND

I picked up a copy of Nice Enough To Eat years ago; it was pennies on a flea market.
I was already familiar with many of the songs from Island's incredible roster of artists, who included Free, Traffic, Tull, King Crimson and Fairport Convention. It's well worth getting a copy, even now.
Nick Drake I didn't know and as good as Time Has Told Me was, as his records weren't widely available, especially in the 1980s, I didn't pursue it.
It was only really with the widespread availability of CD players that artists like Drake became not only known but available.
I remember my boss lending me Pink Moon but I wasn't overenthused.
At some point later I acquired PM To reevaluate it, together with Five Leaves Left and Bryter Later - on CD, of course.
Of the three, PM is my least favourite, and yes, I'd say FLL would be my favourite.
Now, of course, everything's available on vinyl again - even ultra-rare albums like FLL (or Island stable mate John Martyn's long out-of-print London Conversation), and it has recently been re-released as an extended edition called the Making Of FLL, although I've not had time to listen to it yet.
It is, without doubt, a beautiful album, sometimes haunting, often contemplative: a felt grenade from another slower, softer time. Like Van Morrison's Astral Weeks, it is best listened to in its entirety IMO.
It is tragic that Nick Drake died so young - at just 26 - and while the coroner recorded his death as suicide, his friends and family have always maintained that he took an accidental overdose.
Like others who died young (Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin), he barely made a handful of albums but it'll be interesting to see if The Making Of Five Leaves Left project is repeated with either or even both of the other two albums.

P.S. Now that we've established there are a decent number of fans of singer/songwriters and troubadours on BM, I look forward to the day when we can discuss one of Roy Harper's albums!

Further reading...
Remembered For A While - Nick Drake
The Island Book of Records Volume II: 1969-70 - Edited by Neil Storey
(Not cheap but being a muso never was!)
 
BTH said:
A TROUBLED CURE FOR A TROUBLED MIND

I picked up a copy of Nice Enough To Eat years ago; it was pennies on a flea market.
I was already familiar with many of the songs from Island's incredible roster of artists, who included Free, Traffic, Tull, King Crimson and Fairport Convention. It's well worth getting a copy, even now.
Nick Drake I didn't know and as good as Time Has Told Me was, as his records weren't widely available, especially in the 1980s, I didn't pursue it.
It was only really with the widespread availability of CD players that artists like Drake became not only known but available.
I remember my boss lending me Pink Moon but I wasn't overenthused.
At some point later I acquired PM To reevaluate it, together with Five Leaves Left and Bryter Later - on CD, of course.
Of the three, PM is my least favourite, and yes, I'd say FLL would be my favourite.
Now, of course, everything's available on vinyl again - even ultra-rare albums like FLL (or Island stable mate John Martyn's long out-of-print London Conversation), and it has recently been re-released as an extended edition called the Making Of FLL, although I've not had time to listen to it yet.
It is, without doubt, a beautiful album, sometimes haunting, often contemplative: a felt grenade from another slower, softer time. Like Van Morrison's Astral Weeks, it is best listened to in its entirety IMO.
It is tragic that Nick Drake died so young - at just 26 - and while the coroner recorded his death as suicide, his friends and family have always maintained that he took an accidental overdose.
Like others who died young (Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin), he barely made a handful of albums but it'll be interesting to see if The Making Of Five Leaves Left project is repeated with either or even both of the other two albums.

P.S. Now that we've established there are a decent number of fans of singer/songwriters and troubadours on BM, I look forward to the day when we can discuss one of Roy Harper's albums!

Further reading...
Remembered For A While - Nick Drake
The Island Book of Records Volume II: 1969-70 - Edited by Neil Storey
(Not cheap but being a muso never was!)
Click to expand...
We reviewed Roy Harper’s Flat Baroque and Berserk in week #55.
 
I’m with some houseguests this week in Oregon and won’t have a chance to wax poetic nor interminable on Nick Drake, but after three listens I have to say this is a simple record, tuneful, and Nick possesses the ideal voice for his lyrics and pace of his music. It’s more sound craft than song craft I think but with more time I might find that’s wrong. It’s doesn’t grab you but more worms it’s way into you. I did think the extraneous instrumentation wasn’t especially additive — particularly the vibraphone which I found distracting and intrusive (as apparently Nick did if I believe what I read). A comfortable 7/10 despite being outside my bailiwick. One of the more ageless, timeless records we’ve had I think.
 
BTH said:
A TROUBLED CURE FOR A TROUBLED MIND

I picked up a copy of Nice Enough To Eat years ago; it was pennies on a flea market.
I was already familiar with many of the songs from Island's incredible roster of artists, who included Free, Traffic, Tull, King Crimson and Fairport Convention. It's well worth getting a copy, even now.
Nick Drake I didn't know and as good as Time Has Told Me was, as his records weren't widely available, especially in the 1980s, I didn't pursue it.
It was only really with the widespread availability of CD players that artists like Drake became not only known but available.
I remember my boss lending me Pink Moon but I wasn't overenthused.
At some point later I acquired PM To reevaluate it, together with Five Leaves Left and Bryter Later - on CD, of course.
Of the three, PM is my least favourite, and yes, I'd say FLL would be my favourite.
Now, of course, everything's available on vinyl again - even ultra-rare albums like FLL (or Island stable mate John Martyn's long out-of-print London Conversation), and it has recently been re-released as an extended edition called the Making Of FLL, although I've not had time to listen to it yet.
It is, without doubt, a beautiful album, sometimes haunting, often contemplative: a felt grenade from another slower, softer time. Like Van Morrison's Astral Weeks, it is best listened to in its entirety IMO.
It is tragic that Nick Drake died so young - at just 26 - and while the coroner recorded his death as suicide, his friends and family have always maintained that he took an accidental overdose.
Like others who died young (Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin), he barely made a handful of albums but it'll be interesting to see if The Making Of Five Leaves Left project is repeated with either or even both of the other two albums.

P.S. Now that we've established there are a decent number of fans of singer/songwriters and troubadours on BM, I look forward to the day when we can discuss one of Roy Harper's albums!

Further reading...
Remembered For A While - Nick Drake
The Island Book of Records Volume II: 1969-70 - Edited by Neil Storey
(Not cheap but being a muso never was!)
Click to expand...
I proposed Flat, Baroque and Berserk many moons ago…
 
journolud said:
Ironically, or fittingly or just coincidentally I found myself in Cambridge last Wednesday when this album dropped. To be more accurate we were eating our picnic in a Morrison’s carpark in Kettering but it did mean that we could listen to it on the final stretch along the gloriously pastoral A14 (it isn’t).

Not that I knew at that point that Nick Drake had studied at Cambridge. I didn’t actually find that out till Sunday morning when I decided to look him up on Wikipedia. A bit of an opportunity missed then to spot his face amongst the assorted alumni adorning the walls of the bar in the University owned accommodation we were in. We did spot Miriam Margoyles, Stephen Fry, Zadie Smith and lots of people we thought we should recognise.

There’s a bucolic charm to bits of Cambridge (not the A14) that the music of Nick Drake is probably well suited to. My musical musings though were more along the lines of wondering about Syd Barrett and Grantchester Meadows and on our last day, Friday making sure I left town with a vinyl copy of Suede’s new album (earning rave reviews fellas).

Disappointingly neither Nick Drake or Syd Barrett got a mention from the young chap steering our punt up (and back down) the river.

Such meanderings aside what about Nick Drake then? I remember listening to him once before, I can’t remember which album but no doubt driven by yet another article proclaiming his genius and my fear of missing out. That previous dalliance obviously didn’t engage me sufficiently.

It’s almost a whole subsector of singer songwriters itself, the ones who weren’t appreciated at the time for the sensitive and talented young men (or women) they are only to be posthumously rediscovered. Or if they were lucky like Bill Fay to still be alive and pushed back into some sort of prominence by an acolyte.

You either like these rediscovered geniuses or you don’t and if you don’t, well no worries there’ll be another one along next month. It seems fair to say though that Nick Drake sits atop a big pile in the almost universal praise his slim body or works garner. I’ve listened to it all over the past few days and…

Well, I feel like a bit of a heretic. Thoughts of the emperor’s new clothes are probably going a bit too far. And listening to him did give me a clue as to where Ryley Walker might have got his influences from (just googled it and right enough Nick Drake is mentioned, along with Genesis oddly enough). Walker is someone I was briefly enamoured with but grew a little weary of on recordings post Primrose Green.

Back to Nick Drake. I liked some of the arrangements on this record, the strings more than the flute and I was interested to read that they were provided by one of his friends. But strip them away and you’re left with a fairly ordinary suite of songs sung by a man who doesn’t sound as though he believed in himself. And ironically for me, this album felt one paced but unlike some of the apparently one paced albums I’ve defended this one has hardly got out of bed and put it’s slippers on so it could be said it’s not even one paced. Can an album be non-paced?

I’m well against the grain I know and really this is something I should like, being a bit of a sucker for introspective and melancholy musing. But it didn’t move me. Given the best bits are where the underlying soporific sounds are lifted by the arrangements I really should split the score between Nick Drake and Robert Kirby (with an honourable mention to Harry Robertson for River Man). The arrangements lift it from a 5 to a 6 but when it comes to fawning over a much neglected or rediscovered genius, I’ll wait for the next one.
Click to expand...
A bit lazy...but what he said!
And I missed you by 6 days. My final couple of listens today as I flew over and the final one spookily ending just before I stopped (completely unitentionally) in front of Fitzwilliam college in order to work out where my hotel was.
Without the arrangement this would be quite "samey". It is a 6 from the Cambridge jury
 
OB1 said:
I have long thought about having a listen to Nick Drake's "Five Leaves Left" but had never got round to it, so glad it was nominated.

It is not really my thing. I am not a folkie, unless it comes from Zep or Tull...

I am not big on melancholy either.

I can hear that it subtly blends in some jazz and the intricate guitar work, and autumnal orchestration supports the songs and add some interest but I am not drawn in and would not buy it.

Hard to score because I do not dislike it and would not be critical of it; it's just not the leaves I'd use for my cuppa.

6.5/10
Click to expand...
I'm sort of with you on this. The orchestration adds depth to what, in my brain at least, seem an ordinary collection of songs. I wanted this to hit me like the J.J.Cale album did but alas it's not to be.
There's something missing.

Still, my average is a 5...plus a point for the orchestration so it's a big fat, for me, 6.
 
BimboBob said:
I'm sort of with you on this. The orchestration adds depth to what, in my brain at least, seem an ordinary collection of songs. I wanted this to hit me like the J.J.Cale album did but alas it's not to be.
There's something missing.

Still, my average is a 5...plus a point for the orchestration so it's a big fat, for me, 6.
Click to expand...
It’s funny how I thought the orchestration was more veneer vs. adding depth, save the bits of percussion and periodic bass. I guess I want everything to be a four-piece in the end! I did enjoy the guitar work — to me that added enough depth.
 
FogBlueInSanFran said:
It’s funny how I thought the orchestration was more veneer vs. adding depth, save the bits of percussion and periodic bass. I guess I want everything to be a four-piece in the end! I did enjoy the guitar work — to me that added enough depth.
Click to expand...
You might be right.

It’s probably an album as you said in a previous post that worms its way in, if you play it enough so, maybe, one day I’ll go back to it.

I liked the jazzy bits and bass best on the instrumentation.
 
Think it's mostly been said already so I'll add only a couple of thoughts...

Bit surprised at comments around sameness/vanilla - I think there's some really interesting guitar work going on. It's not virtuosic in a Richard Thompson kind of way but it doesn't sound run of the mill to me.

His voice just does it for me. He's a baritone but singing a lot in the upper part of his register and doing so naturally, no affectations or vibrato getting in the way. If you can manage that then for me it just creates something beautiful and intimate. In fairness as we discussed early in the Evolution thread, he's the kind of artist who would be stuffed without modern microphone technology as you just wouldn't have been able to capture his qualities. Even ignoring the shyness, it's really no surprise live performance wasn't his thing.

The aforementioned collaborator on this album once wrote "oh she was a rare thing, as fine as a beeswing, so fine a breath of wind could blow her away" - he was referring to a laundry girl on Cauldrum Street, but the sentiment could equally apply to Nick Drake.

9/10 from me, a great addition to our list of albums.
 
Last edited:
EDITOR'S CHOICE ALERT

A note on today's changeover.

As previously noted, the current selection is the last in round #11. I discussed the inter-round shenanigans with Coatigan and we agreed another editor's choice would be best before we plough straight on with round #12 (maybe we should call it a ploughman's lunch rather than editor's choice?)

Anyway, I picked the first editor's choice (Radiohead) and Coatigan picked the second (Beth Gibbons). So it's back to me for today's selection. Expect some clues around 2 PM-ish.
 
RobMCFC said:
EDITOR'S CHOICE ALERT

A note on today's changeover.

As previously noted, the current selection is the last in round #11. I discussed the inter-round shenanigans with Coatigan and we agreed another editor's choice would be best before we plough straight on with round #12 (maybe we should call it a ploughman's lunch rather than editor's choice?)

Anyway, I picked the first editor's choice (Radiohead) and Coatigan picked the second (Beth Gibbons). So it's back to me for today's selection. Expect some clues around 2 PM-ish.
Click to expand...

You're going to have a funny turn and offer us Cabaret Voltaire aren't you? Ah, go on, go on, go on. :-)
 
threespires said:
You're going to have a funny turn and offer us Cabaret Voltaire aren't you? Ah, go on, go on, go on. :-)
Click to expand...
Would Cabaret Voltaire work as an editor's choice? A work of art that is accessible to most and would at the same time make for good discussion? Just asking, because although I've heard of them/him/her, I have no idea of the music style (but I'll bet it features some atonal vocals).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Unread Posts

Don't have an account? Register now and see fewer ads!

SIGN UP
Back
Top