Previously Unreleased

Nick Drake
Bryter Layter (1970)

About the Artist: Nick Drake was a very talented and very troubled musician. His bouts with depression and mental illness led to his death by an overdose of antidepressants in 1974. He recorded only three albums during his short career (Five Leaves Left, Bryter Layter and Pink Moon). His musical style could best be described as jazz-tinged folk with a dark, moody edge.

About the Album: Bryter Layter is the second of Drake’s three releases. Compared to the earlier Five Leaves Left, it could almost be considered upbeat. Drake was accompanied on the album by John Cale of The Velvet Underground and accomplished guitarist/singer Richard Thompson as well as many others. Drake used horns,flutes and string arrangements to lift “At the Chime of a City Clock” and “Hazy Jane I and II” to a jazzier and lighter place than his previous releases and piano and guitar to create the album’s most moving moment “One of These Things First”, a song about what could have been. Other notable tracks are “Fly” and the love lament “Northern Sky” (both featuring Cale) and the fragile “Poor Boy”. Bryter Layter is the perfect starting point for the uninitiated and one of the more celebrated albums of the 1970’s.