The Wake

It is remarkable that history and hype did not completely smother as delicate an album as Vashti Bunyan’s Lookaftering (Fat Cat/DiChristina). A sophomore release 35 years in the making, it follows her 1970 debut Just Another Diamond Day. Her first album’s inability to be pigeonholed led to its initial rejection, though it earned Bunyan a cult following. Fast forward to the current folk revolution, where we have this humble, nurturing earth mama rubbing elbows with emulators Animal Collective, Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom, all while being hailed as one of the finest artists of 2005.

Even more surprising is that Lookaftering still emerges as a work of unexploited triumph as fresh and breathtaking as her first. Bunyan’s music is a true defiance of time and genre with a sound that could have been captured yesterday or years ago. The result is a sense of feeling too earnest to label.

Her subtle guitar and breezy voice are the backbone to elegant orchestrations of harps, pianos, oboes, and yes, even wine glasses. Bunyan co-arranged the instrumentation with producer Max Richter, and the results are infectious but never abrasive. Her dreamy, ethereal melodies flow well with the intensely personal lyrics of longing and hope. The subjects—living, dying, raising a family only to watch it naturally divide, and departure from the idea of home—are indeed heavy, but the album’s intimacy is thankfully devoid of pretentiousness or irony.
Ultimately, Bunyan is never overshadowed by circumstance and remains timeless through her careful assemblage of gentle music in the most solid and lasting of ways.