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Eleanor Rigby 14 · 09-07-2021, 12:20 PM

Bryter Layter by Nick Drake

TRACKLIST
1. Introduction
2. Hazey Jane II
3. At The Chime Of A City Clock
4. One Of These Things First
5. Hazey Jane I
6. Bryter Layter
7. Fly
8. Poor Boy
9. Northern Sky
10. Sunday

In the suggestions thread, Raime posted a video of one of the tracks from this album. And when I heard it, I quickly searched for the whole album and gave it a listen. Nick Drake’s discography is almost perfect, he only recorded 3 albums, as his career was tragically ended by his death in 1974. Also, most of the time I get confused and call him Nick Cave instead of Drake, and vice versa, but anyway, that’s another story. Here we have his second album, probably my favourite one (although Pink Moon is up there, too, and Five Leaves Left also reaches that level). This album was recorded in 1970, but released the following year. I think I could easily call it a perfectly arranged orchestral folk-pop album. Drake’s acoustic guitar playing is pretty damn good, and I also like his voice. At first I thought it was a bit…obscure, maybe?, but you get used to it. I wouldn’t say he stands out very much as a vocalist, but you don’t really need to be James Brown to sing “Northern Sky”, in fact most people say Bob Dylan can’t sing, but he’s considered to be the best singer of all time according to the super important Rolling Stone Magazine…

But going’ back to Mr Drake’s record, there’ve been a couple of things that actually surprised me. Usually, I don’t really like orchestral or instrumental pieces in pop/rock albums, unless it’s something like prog-rock. I mean, I’ve always considered them to be some kind of non-annoying filler (e.g. The Who’s Overture, Sparks or Underture from Tommy or the Bee Gees’ various symphonic tracks from Odessa). It doesn’t necessarily mean they’re bad, they just seem meaningless. But here’s the surprise, there’s actually more than one instrumental track I like from Bryter Layter, and what’s more, each track was written by Nick Drake himself. The backing musicians include Fairport Convention’s Dave Pegg and Dave Mattacks, The Velvet Underground’s founding member John Cale and session musician Mike Kowalski (who’s known for having toured for a long time with the Beach Boys) But leaving fun facts aside, I’m gonna start reviewing the album as I’m always gonna do, track by track.

The album opens with an instrumental piece, called “Introduction” (props to Nick Drake for coming up with such an original title

). This is not one of the orchestral pieces I like. It's just…well, it’s OK, I’m not gonna skip it cause I hate skipping tracks, but let’s move on to the second one. “Hazey Jane II” is a folk-pop song. I would emphasize on the fact that here’s where you realize that the brass instruments have protagonism and that the string arrangements are really good, too. It’s in the same vein as the following track, “At The Chime Of A City Clock”. This one’s a bit more slow, maybe, but I think it’s better than the previous one. The fourth track ("One Of These Things First") is the first Nick Drake song I’ve heard, the one that was posted on the suggestions thread. That guitar intro still sounds really cool, and surprise surprise, the piano’s also important on this song. I wouldn’t be sure to consider it the best track on this album, because even though I appreciate Nick Drake’s songwriting abilities, I think he would’ve never been able to have really a successful single (“One Of These Things First” or “Pink Moon” are the songs that come closest to be “hit singles” imo). I mean, if I wanna hear some of his music, I’ll play one of his albums, you can’t really understand and value his art with just one song. But moving on to No. 5, we have “Hazey Jane I”. I think that this one is…(see what I’ve written about “II”). The biggest surprise comes next, the sixth song (“Bryter Layter”) has a lovely guitar and flute intro, and at first I thought Nick Drake was gonna start singing at any moment, but no, it’s an instrumental piece, and I must say it sounds really pleasant, and I can do nothing but highlight once more the amazing arrangement done on this album. The next one’s not instrumental but still it’s a nice beautiful song. “Fly” is that type of simple song everyone could’ve thought to be able to write, but very few would've done it. Also love the lyrics. In fact, after some time you’ll realize that I don’t usually mention anything about the lyrics of the songs in my reviews. That’s because most of the times I don’t think I understand them very well, and also because it’s not something I pay attention to during a “first listen”, unless it’s something by Pink Floyd or Genesis. Now we’re almost arriving to the end of the album. Track number 8 (“Poor Boy”) is another one of the surprises here. It’s kind of different, even a bit “jazzy”, and I also love the female backing vocals on it, it’s really different from the other tracks. The piano plays an important role on this one, even plays a mini-solo. Following it, we have another one of Mr Drake’s most famous hits: “Northern Sky”. It’s more “folkish” than “One Of These Things first” and I’d say it’s not as good as the latter, but still, I really like it. The album closes with another really beautiful instrumental track called “Sunday”, again with the flute as the "main character". I’d say it even sounds a little bit epic.

All in all, I’d say Drake’s compositions don’t really shine as hit singles, but the guy sure knew how to make listenable albums. Overall rating: 8.5/10.

09-07-2021, 12:20 PM	#8 (permalink)
Eleanor Rigby 14 Music Addict Join Date: Jan 2021 Location: Madrid, Spain Posts: 413	Bryter Layter by Nick Drake TRACKLIST 1. Introduction 2. Hazey Jane II 3. At The Chime Of A City Clock 4. One Of These Things First 5. Hazey Jane I 6. Bryter Layter 7. Fly 8. Poor Boy 9. Northern Sky 10. Sunday In the suggestions thread, Raime posted a video of one of the tracks from this album. And when I heard it, I quickly searched for the whole album and gave it a listen. Nick Drake’s discography is almost perfect, he only recorded 3 albums, as his career was tragically ended by his death in 1974. Also, most of the time I get confused and call him Nick Cave instead of Drake, and vice versa, but anyway, that’s another story. Here we have his second album, probably my favourite one (although Pink Moon is up there, too, and Five Leaves Left also reaches that level). This album was recorded in 1970, but released the following year. I think I could easily call it a perfectly arranged orchestral folk-pop album. Drake’s acoustic guitar playing is pretty damn good, and I also like his voice. At first I thought it was a bit…obscure, maybe?, but you get used to it. I wouldn’t say he stands out very much as a vocalist, but you don’t really need to be James Brown to sing “Northern Sky”, in fact most people say Bob Dylan can’t sing, but he’s considered to be the best singer of all time according to the super important Rolling Stone Magazine… But going’ back to Mr Drake’s record, there’ve been a couple of things that actually surprised me. Usually, I don’t really like orchestral or instrumental pieces in pop/rock albums, unless it’s something like prog-rock. I mean, I’ve always considered them to be some kind of non-annoying filler (e.g. The Who’s Overture, Sparks or Underture from Tommy or the Bee Gees’ various symphonic tracks from Odessa). It doesn’t necessarily mean they’re bad, they just seem meaningless. But here’s the surprise, there’s actually more than one instrumental track I like from Bryter Layter, and what’s more, each track was written by Nick Drake himself. The backing musicians include Fairport Convention’s Dave Pegg and Dave Mattacks, The Velvet Underground’s founding member John Cale and session musician Mike Kowalski (who’s known for having toured for a long time with the Beach Boys) But leaving fun facts aside, I’m gonna start reviewing the album as I’m always gonna do, track by track. The album opens with an instrumental piece, called “Introduction” (props to Nick Drake for coming up with such an original title ). This is not one of the orchestral pieces I like. It's just…well, it’s OK, I’m not gonna skip it cause I hate skipping tracks, but let’s move on to the second one. “Hazey Jane II” is a folk-pop song. I would emphasize on the fact that here’s where you realize that the brass instruments have protagonism and that the string arrangements are really good, too. It’s in the same vein as the following track, “At The Chime Of A City Clock”. This one’s a bit more slow, maybe, but I think it’s better than the previous one. The fourth track ("One Of These Things First") is the first Nick Drake song I’ve heard, the one that was posted on the suggestions thread. That guitar intro still sounds really cool, and surprise surprise, the piano’s also important on this song. I wouldn’t be sure to consider it the best track on this album, because even though I appreciate Nick Drake’s songwriting abilities, I think he would’ve never been able to have really a successful single (“One Of These Things First” or “Pink Moon” are the songs that come closest to be “hit singles” imo). I mean, if I wanna hear some of his music, I’ll play one of his albums, you can’t really understand and value his art with just one song. But moving on to No. 5, we have “Hazey Jane I”. I think that this one is…(see what I’ve written about “II”). The biggest surprise comes next, the sixth song (“Bryter Layter”) has a lovely guitar and flute intro, and at first I thought Nick Drake was gonna start singing at any moment, but no, it’s an instrumental piece, and I must say it sounds really pleasant, and I can do nothing but highlight once more the amazing arrangement done on this album. The next one’s not instrumental but still it’s a nice beautiful song. “Fly” is that type of simple song everyone could’ve thought to be able to write, but very few would've done it. Also love the lyrics. In fact, after some time you’ll realize that I don’t usually mention anything about the lyrics of the songs in my reviews. That’s because most of the times I don’t think I understand them very well, and also because it’s not something I pay attention to during a “first listen”, unless it’s something by Pink Floyd or Genesis. Now we’re almost arriving to the end of the album. Track number 8 (“Poor Boy”) is another one of the surprises here. It’s kind of different, even a bit “jazzy”, and I also love the female backing vocals on it, it’s really different from the other tracks. The piano plays an important role on this one, even plays a mini-solo. Following it, we have another one of Mr Drake’s most famous hits: “Northern Sky”. It’s more “folkish” than “One Of These Things first” and I’d say it’s not as good as the latter, but still, I really like it. The album closes with another really beautiful instrumental track called “Sunday”, again with the flute as the "main character". I’d say it even sounds a little bit epic. All in all, I’d say Drake’s compositions don’t really shine as hit singles, but the guy sure knew how to make listenable albums. Overall rating: 8.5/10.