Lookaftering vinyl

It's not often you come across an artist you can genuinely refer to as a 'cult legend', but Vashti Bunyan is truly that. A full 35 years on from her only previous album, the singer returns with her first new solo work, a breathtakingly beautiful album. Now based in Edinburgh, Vashti's story tells of the thwarted promise of early fame, disenchantment, long-term exile and eventual rediscovery. In the mid-sixties, after quitting art school to concentrate on music, she was discovered by The Rolling Stones' guru, Andrew Loog Oldham, signed to Decca and recorded a single written by Jagger/Richards. Reviews touted her as 'the new Marianne Faithful' or the 'female Bob Dylan' (though Vashti claimed to be neither), yet further singles remained unreleased, leading to despair and a rejection of the music industry. After living under canvas in the bushes behind Ravensbourne College of Art, she bought a horse and cart and set off in 1968 with her boyfriend for the dream of a creative colony that the singer Donovan was setting up on the Isle of Skye. It took nearly two long years to get there, by which time Donovan had left, but the experience formed the songs for "Just Another Diamond Day", the album recorded by Joe Boyd (featuring members of The Incredible String Band and Fairport Convention) in November 1969, during a trip back to London. On the album's muted release, rather than hang around to promote the record, Vashti left the city again to live with the ISB in the Scottish Borders, and then (with horses, wagons, dogs and children) on to Ireland and obscurity. The record slipped out in a tiny pressing and was rapidly forgotten, yet gradually over the years accrued a cult currency as a lost English classic. In the late nineties, typing her own name into an internet search engine, Vashti became aware of this interest, and after tracking down the masters/rights, "JADD" was re-released - almost thirty years after she had "abandoned it and music forever" - to huge critical acclaim (The Observer Music Monthly placed it at 53 in their 'Top 100 British albums'). A host of young, new admirers emerged citing her influence, and Vashti has since recorded with Piano Magic, The Cocteau Twins' Simon Raymonde, Devendra Banhart, and with Animal Collective on the "Prospect Hummer" EP. Far from being simply some kind of appendage tacked onto the end of an amazing story and a past classic, "Lookaftering" is a fully beautiful album in its own right. produced by fellow Edinburgh resident Max Richter - who also co-arranged with Vashti, it's a rich, beautifully arranged and stirring album. Developing gradually and organically - with work initially taking place between Max and Vashti's homes, and then at various studios in Edinburgh, London and Glasgow - "Lookaftering" is anchored around Vashti's voice and picked acoustic guitar, and Max's piano playing and co-arranging. Its instrumentation includes a string quartet, oboe, harp, French horn, recorder, flute, hammer dulcimer, glasses, harmonium, and Rhodes piano, and it features contributions from Joanna Newsom, Devendra Banhart, Adem, Adam Pierce (Mice Parade), Robert Kirby (Nick Drake etc.), Otto Hauser and Kevin Barker (Espers / Currituck County).