JUST ANOTHER DIAMOND DAY

Much like the excellent Parallelograms by true-blue Cali contemporary Linda Perhacs, interestingly enough released the same year (1970), English singer-songwriter Vashti Bunyan's at-one-time sole and therefore debut release, Just Another Diamond Day, sold so poorly that she quit the music business altogether. She eventually returned to record two other albums, in 2005 and 2014, following a growing cult of devoted fans and an eventual reissue (in 2000) having further pushed the album out of obscurity and into even critical acclaim. This will be a review of a post-2000 remaster including four bonus tracks.

The opener "Diamond Day" is just striking. Beautiful. Vashti's voice is soft yet clear. The inclusion of flute and strings is a really nice touch. The stylistic ties to Parallelograms are immediately apparent and welcomed. Just sweet, sweet beauty. "Glow Worms" is very heart-felt. Short and sweet. Not particularly anything of great interest. "Lily Pond" is next, with mandolin and what sounds like marimba? This is very clearly a classic homage to "Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star" in melody. Coming up onto "Timothy Grub", it's hard for me to say, when comparing to Perhacs, whether or not this is overtly English in tone, but I would like to say it is. This is a very soft number. Toward the end, there's a counter-melody played on, I assume, recorder. It's beautiful, sure, but, unlike Parallelograms, I feel this offers far less in terms of purporting to be progressive music.

Next is "Where I Like to Stand". A very classic, sort of medieval feel. A tad better/more alluring than the prior three. "Swallow Song" has far more string arrangement than before, too. But I don't feel much for it. "Window Over the Bay" is a classic ballad, at first sung a capella. The melody was pretty nice, but I wasn't totally moved by it (much like the majority of the music here thus far). Then we have "Rose Hip November", which interestingly enough has a bit of very soft organ and more mallet percussion (again, of some sort). It's ominous and seemingly melancholic, yet it offers so much more in all of the included instrumentation. Juxtaposed in its positive, warm tone is "Come Wind Come Rain". The return of mandolin is joined, too, by a really nice banjo accompaniment.

"Hebridean Sun" was another soft balladic number. Up next is the equally soft, yet bigger orchestration of "Rainbow River". Very Pretty. Another that is just a hair above the rest. Up next is the quieted "Trawlerman's Song". Pretty. Then it's "Jog Along Bess", which features a rare piano. Cute song. As for the original release, finally we have "Iris's Song For Us". Save for a melody-matching fiddle, it would have been entirely a capella as well.

The first aforementioned bonus track is "Love Song" and I feel it's immediately different from everything that came before. I assume then this was a different recording session entirely. The instrumentation reflects the same focus; it's just that her voice sounds like it had reverb added to it. Which is nice. Up next is the alternatively very Lo-fi recording of "I'd Like To Walk Around in Your Mind". This has a really really nice melody! It also has a ton more plays on Spotify than literally everything else and I can see why! Certainly the lower recording quality (which really just sounds like that was due to it being transferred digitally from vinyl) does nothing in decreasing this song's value. Even more Lo-fi is "Winter Is Blue". Another with a pretty nice melody. Finally finally, we have "Iris's Song - Version Two". Very pretty, but clearly nearer to demo material, now unsurprisingly.

It must be stated that I can and with some frequency do enjoy folk music, but, as is reflected in the lower rating of this album, I feel, even in its very clear and obvious (universal) beauty, this album is seldom near Progressive Folk. That's ok. But it needs to be said.