1st November - Nick Drake's Bryter Layter

Artist – Album: Nick Drake – Bryter Layter

Released: 1^st November 1970

Sounds Like: A crisp November morning

Whether yesterday evening for you consisted of drunken debauchery at a Hallowe’en party or, like me, watching scary movies with no lights on, the chances are you require some gentle, soothing music this morning. Enter: Nick Drake.

Bryter Layter was Drake’s second album, and it’s also his most unchallenging; one where’d he moved very slightly away from the pastoral folk countryside of debut Five Leaves Left to a poppier setting, and one where he hadn’t yet been possessed by the demons that consumed him on final record Pink Moon.

‘Northern Sky’, though understated, stands amongst the greatest love songs of all time, the Hazey Jane’s (actually the name of a pretty good Scottish group) are brilliantly light folk-pop efforts, ‘Fly’ is as delicate as insect wings and ‘One of These Things First’ is busy and fun, bouncing along on Drake’s gossamer croon. All told, it’s a fantastically assured album and one that softly but confidently blows those Hallowe’en cobwebs away.

Albumaday... rating: 9/10

1.       Introduction – 1:33

2.       Hazey Jane II – 3:46

3.       At the Chime of a City Clock – 4:47

4.       One of These Things First – 4:52

5.       Hazey Jane I – 4:31

6.       Bryter Layter – 3:24

7.       Fly – 3:00

8.       Poor Boy – 6:09

9.       Northern Sky – 3:47

10.   Sunday – 3:42

Listen to ‘Hazey Jane II’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSZ9oX0rLgg

Also released on 1^st November:

1988: My Bloody Valentine – Isn’t Anything

Also released on 1^st November:

1970: Grateful Dead – American Beauty

Also released on 1^st November:

1994: Nirvana – MTV Unplugged in New York