It's been 35 years since the release of UK folk singer Vashti Bunyan's solo debut Just Another Diamond Day, which translates to roughly 240 years in music industry terms. And now, with the release of her second album Lookaftering, Bunyan has completed a comeback more reminiscent of pre-war country blues artists like Dock Boggs or Bukka White, whose performing and recording careers were resurrected during the 1960s folk revival, rather than anyone from the pop/rock era. Like those old folk and bluesmen, Bunyan returns to a musical landscape that's been unrecognizably altered. But unlike the later recordings of those performers-- which consisted primarily of reworking their older material-- Lookaftering represents the full-fledged reawakening of a still-vital talent, ready to cast aside her decades-long artistic hibernation and re-ignite her creative fires.
At that time, after the small initial pressing of Diamond Day failed to find an audience, a disheartened Bunyan left the city and music behind, packing her wagon to quietly raise children and animals in the Scottish Borders and rural Ireland. In the meantime, however, her album slowly built a reputation as a lost classic. So when Diamond Day was reissued in Britain to great acclaim in 2000, Bunyan commenced her gradual return to the spotlight. Since then she's made cameo appearances on albums by such fans as Devendra Banhart and Piano Magic, and earlier this year partnered with Animal Collective on the charming Prospect Hummer EP.
On Lookaftering, it comes as a relief to hear not only how pristine Bunyan's delicate vocals remain but that she has retained her understated abilities as a songwriter, despite going decades without picking up a guitar. Taking its title from a self-invented word that refers to taking care of something or someone-- as well as to the process of looking back on the past-- Lookaftering deftly covers both these themes in ample measure. In many regards, this collection seems a wistful, measured reflection upon the long-ago daydreams of Diamond Day and the sweet sadness of all that goes by, while managing to retain the same tranquil, out-of-time intimacy that has allowed her debut to age so gracefully.
Lookaftering also features tasteful instrumental contributions from such guests as Banhart, Joanna Newsom, and Mice Parade's Adam Pierce, but Bunyan's most crucial collaborator proves to be producer Max Richter. Throughout the album, Richter's impeccable orchestrations of piano, strings, and woodwinds (co-arranged by Bunyan) masterfully echo Joe Boyd's classic work with Nick Drake, Fairport Convention, and on Diamond Day; as well as Larry Fallon's chamber-folk arrangements on Nico's Chelsea Girl. As with Diamond Day, this careful balance is critical to the album's success, since Vashti's feathery, near-whispered vocals could be easily capsized by a heavy-handed production.
"Indifference is the coldest hand/ It is the wave that clears the sand," sings Bunyan on "Turning Backs", an exquisitely orchestrated track she has said was written with Nick Drake in mind, but that might also provide insight into the reasons behind her long absence. Her frustration with the domestic life also crops up on "Wayward", on which she describes "days going by lost in clouds of flour and whitewashing," before later sighing, "I wanted to be the one with road-dust on my boots."
Elsewhere, though, these songs look on the past with a shivery, almost tangible longing. "Here Before", is an elegant ode to the happy mysteries of parenthood ("Once I had a child/ He was wild in the moonlight/ He could do it all/ Like he'd been here before") while on "Against the Sky" she depicts a city-dweller nostalgic for her old farmstead ("The hill behind the old house/ I can trace it with my finger.") For some listeners, such nostalgia might teeter uncomfortably close to sentimentality, but even on personal tracks such as the brief elegy "Brother", Bunyan keeps her touch impossibly light, reflecting only for a moment before quickly turning another page. Lookaftering closes with a wordless reprise of "Wayward", as she quietly hums the song's melody as though unaware that anybody might be listening. But, hopefully, with the arrival at last of her stunning second album, Vashti Bunyan need no longer worry about her music going unheard.
