7794 - VASHTI BUNYAN - HEARTLEAP (2014)
VASHTI BUNYAN
''HEARTLEAP''
OCTOBER 7 2014
34:01
1 - Across the Water 3:45
2 - Holy Smoke 4:44
3 - Mother 3:25
4 - Jellyfish 3:36
5 - Shell 4:02
6 - The Boy 1:35
7 - Gunpowder 2:58
8 - Blue Shed 2:05
9 - Here 3:13
10 - Heartleap 4:32
REVIEW
BY FATCAT RECORDS
Now based in Edinburgh, Vashti’s story tells of the thwarted promise of early fame, disenchantment, long-term exile and eventual rediscovery. In the mid-‘60s, after quitting art school to concentrate on music, she was discovered by The Rolling Stones’ guru, Andrew Loog Oldham, signed to Decca and recorded a single written by Jagger / Richards. Reviews touted her as ‘the new Marianne Faithful’ or the ‘female Bob Dylan’ (though Vashti claimed to be neither), yet further singles remained unreleased, leading to a sense of despair and a rejection of the music industry.
After living under canvas in the bushes behind Ravensbourne College of Art, she bought a horse and cart and set off in 1968 with her boyfriend for the dream of a creative colony that the singer Donovan was setting up on the Scottish Isle of Skye. It took them nearly two long years to get there, by which time Donovan had left, but the experience formed the songs for ‘Just Another Diamond Day’, the album recorded by Joe Boyd (and featuring members of The Incredible String Band and Fairport Convention) in November ‘69, during a trip back to London. On the album’s muted release in 1970, rather than hang around to promote the record, Vashti left the city again to live with the Incredible String Band in the Scottish Borders, and then (with horses, wagons, dogs and children) on to Ireland and back - to obscurity in the Scottish hills.
The record slipped out in a tiny pressing and was rapidly forgotten, yet gradually over the years accrued a cultish currency as a lost English classic. In the late ‘90s, typing her own name into an internet search engine, Vashti became aware of this interest, and after tracking down the masters / rights, ‘JADD’ was re-released on the Spinney label – almost thirty years after she had “abandoned it and music forever” - to huge critical acclaim (The Observer Music Monthly placed it at 53 in their ‘Top 100 British albums’). A host of young, new admirers emerged citing her influence, and Vashti has since recorded with Piano Magic, The Cocteau Twins’ Simon Raymonde, Devendra Banhart, and with Animal Collective on the ‘Prospect Hummer’ EP that FatCat instigated in 2003 and released in May 2005. Following our contact with Vashti, we began chatting and offering advice on some new songs she was writing and looking for a home for. After a while, it occurred to us that instead of advising her on other labels, maybe FatCat could be that home. Vashti happily agreed and the result was her album, the truly beautiful ‘Lookaftering’ released in October 2005
With a new journey starting here, ‘Lookaftering’ achieved huge critical success, and saw Vashti once again taking to the road for a string of successful live shows and radio and TV appearances across Europe, North America, Australia and Japan. Following months of discussions, searching for masters and attempting to obtain clearance for them, in October 2007, we released the stunning double CD, ‘Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind’, a lavishly-packaged collection of Vashti’s early singles and demos, dating from the period pre-‘Just Another Diamond Day’, 1964-67, the second disc containing material on a reel-to-reel tape she’d accidentally discovered, which was from her first ever recording session.
In February 2008. FatCat released a limited edition remastered pressing of the historic 7” single, ‘Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind’, written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Originally released way back in May 1965 on the Decca label (as just ‘Vashti’, no Bunyan), the single was actually the young London-based singer’s debut record. The track is backed by her own beautiful song, ‘I Want To Be Alone’ on the B-side.
In October 2008 a world premiere screening of a new feature-length documentary about Vashti’s life was screened at the prestigious British Film Institute, as part of The London Film Festival. Previously responsible for the ‘Finisterre’ film made with St. Etienne, BAFTA winning director Kieran Evans’ beautiful documentary features footage of Vashti preparing for a concert at the Barbican, indicative of the revival of interest in her music, and sees her retrace the journey that would inspire her landmark work, ‘Just Another Diamond Day’.
Vashti put her touring boots back on in early 2010, playing shows in Japan, Canada and Singapore - as well as shows in the UK - and entirely missing FatCat’s deadline for delivering a new album - with only four new songs completed by this time.
A hiatus in her song-writing and recording came with the untimely passing of Robert Kirby in 2009 - who had arranged three of the songs on 1970’s ‘Just Another Diamond Day’ and with whom she had just reconnected. They had planned to work on new arrangements together. It was another two years before she decided she must arrange the music herself - with Robert always in mind.
Through the following three years a new album slowly emerged, recorded mostly by Vashti herself in her own studio, and is set for release on FatCat in Autumn 2014, alongside tour dates in UK and Europe.
REVIEW
by Thom Jurek
It's been nine years since Vashti Bunyan released her sophomore album, Lookaftering. When contrasted with the three and a half decades between it and her classic 1970 debut, Just Another Diamond Day, it seems like a blip. Bunyan has said in an interview that Heartleap will be her final album. That it sums up everything she has to say. For those who take in these tender, poignant songs about relationships (familial and interpersonal), life's experiences, and reflections, this is sad news. Bunyan produced and edited Heartleap herself; this is a first. She plays the guitar well enough, but though piano appears throughout, Bunyan doesn't play the instrument. She carefully assembled these parts, from single notes. While her use of the synthesizer was discouraged and put aside on her last offering, here it unobtrusively sits with organic strings, guitars, piano, and an occasional recorder. Despite the intense focus and years of recording, and contributions from other artists sent from as far away as New York and Los Angeles, Heartleap flows dreamily from the outset. "Across the Water" contrasts notions of being stuck emotionally and then becoming unstuck, free to live the life of one's choosing; Jo Mango's kalimba adds an earthy resonance. "Holy Smoke" -- with a subtle backing chorus from Devendra Banhart -- allows Gareth Dickson's ghostly, melodic electric guitar to support the airy yet determined vocal about refusing to allow grief and sorrow to claim the joy in one's life. "Mother," with its gently cascading, doubled piano lines and ghostly strings, is perhaps the set's most beautiful track, offering the memory of catching her own mother dancing, singing, and playing the piano in the precious few moments she had to herself apart from her daily duties. "Gunpowder" reflects on an at times complex communication in a continuing relationship with a former lover. The staggered and layered wordless harmonies that introduce "Here" are haunting; they underscore the quietly expressed but nonetheless real fear of abandonment articulated in its lyric. The closing title track is named for the cover illustration (Hart's Leap by her daughter, Whyn Lewis). Each line in the song begins with the word "heart." It takes in the entire cycle of love, joy, loss, grief, and the marks each leaves upon one as time passes. The melody, comprised of single piano notes and fingerpicked acoustic guitar, underscores a tome that feels captured in the moment. It's as if Bunyan wondered what might transpire once she uttered these words. The recording is her witness. The entirety of Heartleap is wispy, spare, understated, and moving in its insight and honesty. But this song -- and the compassion and empathy with which it expresses the enormity of these emotions in the cycle of life -- is perhaps the most piercing and affirmative in the lot. If there has to be a final statement from Bunyan, this painstaking, sometimes hesitant, and always brave and vulnerable one is not only fitting, but essential in comprehending the totality of her life's work.
BIOGRAPHY
by Bruce Eder
Vashti Bunyan is a folk chanteuse and singer/songwriter, best known for her 1970 album Just Another Diamond Day, which was rediscovered in the 21st century and dusted off with a new CD issue as one of the great musical finds of its era. Born in London in 1945 -- and counting herself a direct descendant of writer/preacher John Bunyan (1629-1688) -- she first took up the guitar while a student at the Ruskin School of Fine Art and Drawing, from which she was ultimately expelled at age 18 for spending too much time writing songs and not enough time painting. A bit of a free spirit even then, she took a trip to New York and, while there, fell under the spell of Bob Dylan's music, especially his album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. Once back in London, Bunyan was committed to a career in music, and through theatrical agent Monte Mackay she soon met Rolling Stones manager/producer Andrew Loog Oldham. In his recollections in 2007, he saw and heard in her the equivalent of Juliette Gréco, Marie Laforet, and Françoise Hardy, except that she was English -- he signed her to Decca Records and for her debut single brought her the Mick Jagger/Keith Richards-penned "Some Things Just Stick in Your Mind." The record earned little attention, and Bunyan moved to Columbia for the follow-up, "Train Song," released in May of 1966.
She moved into the orbit of Oldham's Immediate Records after its founding that year and recorded a brace of sides, mostly of her own music, none of which was issued commercially. She also cut one side with the Twice as Much (Immediate's answer to Simon & Garfunkel), entitled "The Coldest Night of the Year." The latter, with its Phil Spector-like production and beautiful harmonizing, showed off her singing at its most pop-oriented and commercial. This was during what one might call the "dolly bird" phase of Bunyan's career, in which she was part of the Swinging London scene (at least musically), and one supremely atmospheric and hauntingly beautiful performance of hers that did see the light of day was "Winter Is Blue," which turned up in Peter Whitehead's documentary Tonite Let's All Make Love in London (1967). Sometime after that, she left London in a horse-drawn wagon on a two-year journey into communal living in the Hebrides, with the ultimate goal of meeting folk icon Donovan on the Isle of Skye. She later chanced to cross paths with American producer Joe Boyd, who had made his name in London recording acts such as Pink Floyd and Fairport Convention. Throughout her travels Bunyan had continued writing songs, and in 1969 she teamed with Boyd to record her debut LP, the lovely Just Another Diamond Day, which included some assistance from such British folk notables as Simon Nicol and Dave Swarbrick from Fairport Convention, and the Incredible String Band's Robin Williamson. After completing the album she left for Ireland, dropping out of music to raise a family.
Long out of print and a highly prized collectible, Just Another Diamond Day was finally reissued on CD in the summer of 2000 and attracted an extraordinary amount of enthusiastic press, as well as something like the sales to match. Suddenly, Bunyan was in demand, fans and writers knocking at her door and sending e-mails of encouragement and support. In 2005 she returned with Lookaftering, a reference to her years "lookaftering" her family. The album appeared on Fat Cat's DiCristina imprint and featured artwork by Vashti's daughter. The release was followed by a series of performances that took her all the way to New York City, among other international locales -- by that time, word had spread sufficiently about Bunyan as a rediscovered talent that the New York performance rated mention in The New York Times. In 2007, Fat Cat/DiCristina released Some Things Just Stick in Your Mind, a compilation of Vashti Bunyan's '60s Decca, Columbia, and Immediate recordings, plus a set of demos dating from 1964.
2008 saw the release of a feature documentary, Vashti Bunyan: From Here to Before and that same year she revealed in an interview that she had begun to write some new material. In 2014, she announced that she had completed her third album, entitled Heartleap. Self-recorded and produced, she announced that it would be her final album. Heartleap was released in October of 2014.