VASHTI BUNYAN

lookaftering

CD, Fat Cat

The fact that Bunyan left a staggering 35 years between her first album and this her second one will be remarked upon in every review of “Lookaftering”, I guess. But it is an astonishing figure and the story of her releasing “Just Another Diamond Day” and then silently embarking on a mystical hippie/gypsie-journey to the far stretches of the British Isles is just too good to be passed. Thankfully, I am done with that now and we can turn to something more important than near-legends and modern folk.music myths. For Fat Cat it is a wild step to release this record, but I am always thankful for bravado and spirit, especially if it results in beautiful records. Vashti Bunyan was also featured on an EP together with Animal Collective, and if you compare their music with the songs of Vashti Bunyan you’ll instantly see what I mean. Or compare it to any other artist on Fat Cat, from Crescent to Xinlisupreme and from Mice Parade to Black Dice, you’ll get to the same conclusion: “lookaftering” does not fit anywhere into the grounds that the label has pinned down for itself. True, these grounds are very different but they all share some common traits: experimentalism, progressiveness (in the best sense of the word) and a youthful approach towards music and / or sounds. Vashti Bunyan on the other hand stays close to a traditional folk-song-structure and musically uses her singing, guitar and some accompanying instruments to set herself in an almost transcendental and world-wise mood. And maybe she has transcended earthly formalisms and materialist needs and has become wise with time and travels – she certainly has tried – but the underlying genetic formula is one that is old-fashioned (in the best sense of the word again) and full of dreamy melancholia. Which adds up to new grounds for Fat Cat.

Funnily, the one act on the label (with which remark I’ll stop the whole label – artist discussion before it starts to look completely useless even to me who started it) that I feel is closest to Bunyan musically is not Songs Of Green Pheseant (only because there are strong hints at harmonies used Sixties-Folk-music is not enough for me to make them share a single box). Rather I have been thinking of Sigur Ros. Because even though their approach might be completely different – longwinded, introspective instrumental music filled with mystic meditations here and dreamy nostalgic folk songs on acoustic guitar or piano with soft singing and no shyness to use a flute sole here and there on the other side – the results are quite the same: a deeply relaxing, transcendental state of mind that soothes the mind and makes it go blank in the middle of a thought. A zen-like situation or one of pensive quietness. Pictures of lush fields of wheat flowing gently in the evening sun come to mind as well as images of the birth of the universe and some such. The great dreams of a better world that so deeply drenched the late Sixties, in a nutshell (and which were soon destroyed by the cold war, atomic power plants and punk and industrial music, it should be added.) And within Vashti Bunyan these dreams have survived. As they have outside and in the musical world as well. Singer / Songwriters with a heavy lean towards the British Sixties seem to be all the rage at the moment anyway; two of the better ones also appear on this record (Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom) amongst some other friends and musicians.

Every note sung or played is set with careful gentleness on “Lookaftering”. Her voice has been steadily called “angelic” or “fragile” and with a good reason, too. This tenderness leads to moments of surprising intimacy. They playful simple piano-lines on “Feet of Clay” are the highest point of movement available throughout. Most of the time the pace is set by a dreamy world-weariness that seems to come from a higher wisdom but has never lost its humbleness towards the overwhelming magic of nature. Towards the end Bunyan resides to a mere hum – on “Wayfaring Hum” – which in all its simplicity and obviousness really sums up her live and music perfectly. In the end, this record emanates a charm and beauty that even hardened cynics and ex-punkrockers like me can’t fend off.