Track Listing

1. Introduction
2. Hazey Jane II
3. At The Chime Of A City Clock
4. One Of These Things First
5. Hazey Jane I
6. Bryter Layter
7. Fly
8. Poor Boy
9. Northern Sky
10. Sunday

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2758 in Music
• Released on: 2003-05-06
• Number of discs: 1

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

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

Customer Reviews

Drake at his Most upbeat
This is my favorite Drake record. All 3 of his albums are easily 5 stars albums but this one is the most upbeat and thus can be listened to fairly regularly while the other 2 especially Pink Moon can only be taken on a song by song basis for me.

1. "Introduction" 3/5
2. "Hazey Jane II" 5/5
3. "At the Chime of a City Clock" 5/5
4. "One of These Things First" 5/5
5. "Hazey Jane I" 4/5
6. "Bryter Layter" 5/5
7. "Fly" 4/5
8. "Poor Boy" 4/5
9. "Northern Sky" 5/5
10. "Sunday" 4/5

More Greatness From the King of Folk
Well, you pretty much have no excuse for lending an ear to Nick Drake's three albums. Like many artists that manage to only release three albums, each of their records are so different and good that it's quality over quanity. While Drake's albums don't score a hat trick together, all of them are worth listening to, and all of them are quite stunning.

Nick Drake tried something new with Bryter Layter, and it sounds the best when the right mood hits (just like Nick Drake's other albums, actually).
Bryter Layter is lighter than the rest of the albums, and is brilliantly orchestrated. Drake still has that beautiful guitar playing, though I think his playing is less highlighted, not quite as shimmering as Five Leaves Left or Pink Moon, but it doesn't need to me. His voice is, as usual, stunning and evokes all kinds of things, his lyrics are as good as you'd expect from him, and the other instruments are brilliantly used, as they are also a highlighted part of the record.

As mentioned before, this is probably his most experimental of the three.
All kinds of things show up, like flutes, strings, piano, percussion, horns, saxophones, bells, John Cale, plodding drums, other kinds of guitars, and bass. It's closer to Chamber pop, or at least that's the best I can make a connection to, than folk music (at least in some of the songs). Three instrumentals also make the cut.

For the songs themselves, they all have quite to offer. The three instrumentals are all beautiful guitar pieces with other instrumentation evoking moods like you wouldn't believe. Some of it is indeed quite jazzy, like Poor Boy, which sounds actually like bossa nova at times. Northern Sky twinkles beautifully, as it's one of the best tracks on this album, and it's a love song that doesn't resort to cliches. The Hazey Jane songs, At the Chime Of A City Clock, no bad songs really. You get ten evoking pieces that shimmer with beauty, well your getting Nick Drake, and that says it all.

This album doesn't feature his best guitar playing (that belongs to Pink Moon), but it perhaps shows Nick Drake's amazing way of beauty, well, it's just a fantastic showcase for Nick Drake (hate to sound like the amazon editor's review, but it is). Nick Drake is the best folk artist in my opinion, and it shows in his three albums. Get it now.

9/10

And so, we revise.
History is not so much doomed to repeat itself as it is to revise itself.

Clearly Bryter Layter has been an important touchstone for the indie-folk and chamber-pop set, and it is a glimpse at Drake out from under his usual spare, melancholy mantle. There are some positively bubbly arrangements that belie the myth of Drake the introverted suicidal. Flutes, strings, and percolating piano lines adorn songs that, in a more "Pink Moon" mood, might have garnered tags like "somber" or "interior."

For fans of Drake who appreciate his fingerpicked guitar and wistful, reflective material, Bryter Layter is often the least favorite -- "Poor Boy" and "Hazy Jane II" don't fit the mold of Drake as lonely outsider. Clearly some daring was shown in producing this album -- Drake even insisted he had "no songs left" when Bryter Layter's three instrumentals were in jeopardy of being left off the album. He was proud of the arrangements and the lusher sound.

He rethought this approach by the time he recorded Pink Moon, an album without so much as a vocal harmony.

It is really difficult to listen to Nick Drake dispassionately, forgetting he was an overlooked genius in his own time, forgetting his recorded output is entirely crystallized by his early death and by critical adoration. He is destined to be forever brilliant, forever charmed, forever sad and haunting. Idiosyncratic albums like Bryter Layter might be seen as stylistic blips leading to his "true" sound on Pink Moon -- just an idealistic dalliance with adding lush orchestrations to his simple and emotionally gripping songs.

Now that Drake is cannonized by Volkswagen commercials and a younger generation "discovering" and "revering" him, all his albums are considered brilliant. If a demo is unearthed, it is given huge amounts of attentive listening. If only living artists had this privilege!

In that light, and perhaps in a deliberate effort to find fault with Bryter Layter and the general adulation given Drake, I could complain that the orchestral arrangements veer close to what would become smooth jazz, that the breezy horns and flutes are at odds with the outlook of the songs. I'm not ready to fully adore this album the way "Five Leaves Left" and "Pink Moon" salve my ears and listen like clear, sparse poetry. Indeed the album was met somewhat coolly upon its release. Yet the strength of Nick Drake's songwriting shines through the experimentation with swelling strings and jazzy rhythm guitars. The search for pop is in high evidence here.

This was a necessary misadventure for Drake, still standing on its own feet and earning its own four stars by merit alone. The most dated of Drake's recordings, but far far from inessential. Some sobriety is needed in the reviews -- not all new listeners will listen charitably (at least not at first). Bryter Layter is probably the most pleasant sounding "challenging" music out there. If misteps were made, at least they were made with confidence, and led to further artistic growth.