Released: 1971
One of the most surprising aspects of Nick Drake’s lasting posthumous success is that there is so little with which to tie him into the modern world; cursed by an incredible sense of unease in public, the singer withdrew from live performance in 1970 after only a handful of gigs and was never captured on video. Even the images available are time stamped, as Drake was never officially photographed beyond a last session on Hampstead Heath in late 1971 and his final years were spent living as a recluse in rural Warwickshire at his parents house.
There is a school of thought that supposes we can then project onto this almost blank canvas and essentially assemble our own Nick Drake, be it as a virtuoso guitar maverick or haunted, sensitive genius. The fascination has reached an unlikely fever pitch in recent years, with his list of contemporary fans including Michael Stipe, Elton John and even Brad Pitt – but who and what are we actually so enamoured with?
The only definitive answers lie in Drake’s music, of which the recorded output runs to three albums and a smattering of additional material, the former selling a meager four thousand copies in total prior his death. His last Pink Moon is so bleak as to hardly be there, but it’s predecessor Bryter Later is by contrast full of light and shade and Hazy Jane I, with it’s riverbank strings and achingly gentle motifs, is almost impossible to reconcile with the image of a man who ended up sitting in silence for days on end. Were it not for the evidence of our charmed hearts and minds, it would be easier to believe he’d never been with us at all.
The Voice Of Unreason 