Basket of Light by Pentangle
 

Here´s the most recent winner of the FAIR club poll:-

I wonder who gave this a listen, and what you made of it?

I was very pleased when I bought this album 44 years ago, to play on my very first record player. I also remember lending the album around to a small circle of school friends who liked it too, so I´m particularly interested to see how Pentangle might sound to modern listeners. Is Basket of Light a gem from the past or does it sound too out-dated ?

Outdated is definitely not a word I would use to describe the album. I'm listening to it now, and what's crazy is that I think a lot of modern music has sort of built upon the sounds in songs such as "Light Flight" and "Hunting Song."

In fact, there is an anime called "Wolf's Rain" (from 2005 or 2006) that features tracks composed by Yoko Kanno that have similar vocals, instruments, and tempo. I'm really interested in whether or not their is a connection, actually. The singer I'm referring to specifically is Maaya Sakamoto.

That said, I like the two tracks I was able to find on Youtube! I rated "OK"!

:)

Hey, I´m glad there was something of interest for you in Basket of Light, misspoptart.

Prompted by your comment, I dipped into a couple of Wolf´s Rain tracks - very new territory for me. I liked the Gravity song that features Maaya Sakamoto, but I didn´t notice much similarity to Pentangle tbh. Something I did notice was about how female vocalists are recorded these days. Maaya Sakamoto´s vocal track included the sound of her breathing between lines, whereas back in the day of Pentangle´s Jaqui McShee, that kind of exposure of technique was never attempted, the singer delivered the words and then was expected to keep quiet till the next line started. Anyone else noticed that difference in recording style ? I think the change occurred about the time of Clannad´s popularity and higher fidelity recording technology.

Anyway, thanks for the comments and the votes, Miss P and rostasi. I have the bad habit of voting excellent for every album I nominate, so this time I´m just going for "good". After all, this album has a couple of weaker tracks and I´ve heard this material so many times that my response to it has dulled more than I at first thought.

PS. There´s plenty more than two tracks on Youtube; here are a couple more for anyone interested :-

While reading through Pentangle's history on Wikipedia I realised I had a few albums with Pentangle connections. I didn't realise Bert Jansch was involved. I already have a number of his albums including Bert and John which also features John Renbourn of Pentangle. Two other members Danny Thompson and Terry Cox played with John McLaughlin. Thompson also played on several of Bert Jansch's albums as well as with Nick Drake, Tim Buckley, John Martyn and a host of others. In short quite the lineage.

Having said that I'm not sure there were many stand-out tracks for me on Basket of Light. Much of their sound has probably been replicated many times over the years to somewhat lessen the impact of the album but overall I did enjoy the album and I've rated it 'good'. In all it's nice to fill in some gaps in my folk history :).

^ Haha ! You´re right. Although they weren´t really seen that way at the time, in retrospect they look like the absolute super-group of folk.

^ I was thinking this too. With the possible exception of Light Flight, there were no tracks that ever made me feel, "Wow, I must hear that again." I think their approach was a little too reverential; too much carefully perfected execution and not enough passion.

The track I was thinking of was actually this one:



But upon another listen, I also see similarities in:



Maybe this outlines my connection better. :)

^ Thanks, misspoptart, now I can see what you´re saying. There´s a strong similarity of sound; the voice, the instrumentation, the tempo. The "run,run,run" fade out of your second track sounds exactly like Pentangle !
I´m going to listen to a few more Wolf´s Rain songs, I think. Was it a program on tv ?

It was on "adult swim" on Cartoon Network between 2005-2007. The soundtrack has a variety of folk influences, and Yoko Kanno is a composing legend. My favorite song off the soundtrack (it has two disks) is "Mouth on Fire."

(Sorry this is a bit off topic!)



Anyway, its a huge collection of different sounds.

spagetto