Artist – Album: Nick Drake – Pink Moon
Released: 25th
February 1975
Sounds Like: A gentle Armageddon is on its way
Nick Drake has attained near mythic status over the course
of the last decade or so. Somehow there’s romance in the tragedy of the young hero
who, unloved in his time, takes his own life. See also Elliott Smith and Jeff
Buckley. But the legend doesn’t arise from our love of heartbreak alone –
although he was only 23 when he released Pink Moon, his third and final album, with
it he completed a beautiful hat trick of albums that deserve to garner the
acclaim they are now afforded.
Title track ‘Pink Moon’
is probably the liveliest track on the album, involving as it does hushed
vocals, acoustic guitar and piano. On
first glance it’s a lovely, sunny track about some strange natural phenomenon,
but on closer inspection it’s Drake is welcoming in the apocalypse with a
vacant smile on his face. “Pink Moon gonna get ye all” indeed.
Although it’s not easy, the rest of the album finds Drake crawl
further within himself. Gone is the piano, and Drake lyrics become less
decipherable. Song titles like ‘Parasite’
and ‘Free Ride’ give some
indication of the sinister turn his words have taken. His masterful knowledge
of guitar chords and strange tunings keep his plucked acoustic tracks
interesting and the his delivery seems alarmingly content, as though he’s
already given himself up to things behind the sun.
And then it’s finished. At only 28 minutes long it’s the
shortest album I’ve reviewed yet, but the consistent brilliance of the whole
record means that it can be played through on a never-ending loop ‘til
Judgement Day.
Albumaday... rating:
10/10
1. Pink
Moon – 2:06
2. Place
to Be – 2:43
3. Road
– 2:02
4. Which
Will – 2:58
5. Horn
– 1:23
6. Things
Behind the Sun – 3:57
7. Know
– 2:26
8. Parasite
– 3:36
9. Free
Ride – 3:06
10. Harvest
Breed – 1:37
11. From
the Morning – 2:30
Listen to ‘From the
Morning’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAmq-KeX18s
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Also released on the 25th February:
1995: Elliott Smith – Either/Or
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Also released on the 25th February:
2008: Sébastien Tellier - Sexuality
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