Bryter Layter

Bryter Layter

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com essential recording
The second album from Nick Drake came in 1970, and while not quite as melancholy as his debut, Five Leaves Left, there are certain brooding qualities that continued to propagate the Nick Drake mystique. Horns, flute, and strings arrangements lift such songs as "At the Chime of a City Clock" and "Hazy Jane I" and "II" out of the realm of sad, folk-guitar music into something jazzier and lighter, while the beautiful piano and simple guitar of "One of These Things First" laments what could have been without sounding like a song of despair. But two tracks featuring John Cale on various instruments (such as viola and harpsichord) have the dark fragility of "Pink Moon": the lovely "Fly" is a fragile apparition, and "Northern Sky" is a dreamy, brooding plea for long-lasting love. Definitely not the same mood music as his starker work, but still a fine showcase for Nick Drake. --Lorry Fleming

Product Description
Reissue of the late British folk icon's 1970 sophomore album. Ten tracks. Island.

Tracks:

Introduction
Hazey Jane II
At The Chime Of A City Clock
One Of These Things First
Hazey Jane I
Bryter Layter
Fly
Poor Boy
Northern Sky
Sunday

Amazon.com essential recording

The second album from Nick Drake came in 1970, and while not quite as melancholy as his debut, Five Leaves Left, there are certain brooding qualities that continued to propagate the Nick Drake mystique. Horns, flute, and strings arrangements lift such songs as "At the Chime of a City Clock" and "Hazy Jane I" and "II" out of the realm of sad, folk-guitar music into something jazzier and lighter, while the beautiful piano and simple guitar of "One of These Things First" laments what could have been without sounding like a song of despair. But two tracks featuring John Cale on various instruments (such as viola and harpsichord) have the dark fragility of "Pink Moon": the lovely "Fly" is a fragile apparition, and "Northern Sky" is a dreamy, brooding plea for long-lasting love. Definitely not the same mood music as his starker work, but still a fine showcase for Nick Drake. --Lorry Fleming

Album Description

Reissue of the late British folk icon's 1970 sophomore album. Ten tracks. Island.

Customer Reviews:

Just a single simple question..........2007-06-19

How can anyone listen to this music and not feel changed?

Bryter Layter Is Great.......2007-05-22

I heard an interview with Joe Boyd who produced this and many other British artists in the late 60s and thought that I would pick up one of his personal favorite artists: Nick Drake. It is great, kind of a Donovan sound, better voice and more jazzy. 'Northern Skies' especially is hauntingly great!

Lovely "Layter".......2007-05-07

Thought provoking, reflective lyrics, gorgeous music, what more could anyone ask for? The lounge, jazz sound may not sound like it's conducive to many moods but it is. I play this when I'm happy, I play this when I'm sad, I play this when I'm frustrated, I play this when I'm tense, I play this when I just... am. And it perfectly matches all those moods and more. "At The Chime of a City Clock" and "Hazy Jane 1" are my favorites, but the whole record is great. The sound is so unique, it's easy to forget that this was recorded in 1970, 37 years ago, but only a few songs sound even slightly dated.

The sadness and tragedy of Nick's life make this even more poignant. I'm just glad the world finally caught on to Nick, and hope there's comfort in him for that even now.

Brighten My Northern Sky.......2007-04-30

Nick Drake was one of those artists whom I'd heard praised a thousand times in the past, but by whom I had never heard even a single note. So when I walked into Borders a couple months ago, I hadn't thought about him in months and had no intention of getting anything of his. But when I saw his name out of the corner of my eye in the "Folk" section, something - I can't say what - impelled me to pick up a copy of BRYTER LAYTER. I had no idea what I'd find inside. And that made listening to this album for the first time all the more magical.

The categorization of music is a futile exercise at best, but BRYTER LAYTER is especially hard to pigeonhole into a single defined "style". The music contained herein is just as likely to recall (or rather foreshadow) the jazz-pop of Joni Mitchell's COURT & SPARK ("Poor Boy") as the British folk of the Fairport Convention ("One of These Things First"), dressed in Nick Drake's exquisite guitar and strings straight out of "Yesterday", accessorized by delicate flute and harpsichord. But then you have that alto sax appearing from nowhere in the baroque folk-pop of "At the Chime of a City Clock", or the peals of distant tom-tom thunder in "Hazey Jane I". And I swear the entire Belle & Sebastian catalogue might well be modeled on "Hazey Jane II". "Fly" sounds like some timeless nineteenth century art-song, it's so lovely and yearning. And "Northern Sky"... I don't know where this comes from, and I don't especially care. I just know it's one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard.

Maybe the most accurate comparison I can make is to Van Morrison's contemporaneous, similarly impossible-to-classify masterwork ASTRAL WEEKS. But that still that doesn't do Mr. Drake and his record justice. Maybe BRYTER LAYTER doesn't defy categorization so much as it simply ignores it. Its pastoral world cannot be limited by such tags as "folk" or "rock" or any other label you care to think of or invent.

I'm a musical adventurer. I love to discover new artists and new albums and new sounds. But the best music, the stuff that really sticks with you, is familiar. Not samey or derivative, but familiar - comforting. So when you listen to it, even though you've never heard it before, you have heard it before, if you know what I mean. Like meeting an old friend for the first time. Like BRYTER LAYTER.

All hail the inimitable genius of Nick Drake..........2007-04-10

How in the friggin' hell can anyone give this album one star?! Seriously - yeah, it's not in the typical melancholy, stark, just Nick-and-a-guitar mode, but you know what, if we're going to juxtapose it with everything else that's out there (not just Nick's other stuff) there is no way that this album deserves less than four stars.

Not that I am against the more melancholy Drake at all - "Pink Moon" is one of my favorite albums of all time - I love him when he is in that element and one has no musical ear if they fail to realize how brilliant and exacting his guitar playing is; but to say that his genius stops there is just not right. I was in no way displeased with this album and consider it another Drake masterwork. He sounds good in a happier mood. Yes, it is a bit more produced than the others, but it's completely true to the nature of the album and it works perfectly as it is; I wouldn't change it at all or call it 'over'-produced, it's just 'more-produced'. Orchestral arrangements are done again by Cambridge friend Robert Kirby, who branched out a bit from "Leaves" to include brass and woodwinds. However, in writing them he was ever-mindful of Nick's guitar; it serves as an anchor to all of the orchestration rather than completely obscuring it. A bit more of a jazzy feel here (that, honestly, can get a bit loungy and dentists'-office-waiting-room at times, especially with the flute).