Nick Drake - Made to Love Magic
|
List Price: Our Price: $5.22 You Save: $8.76 (63%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $2.99 (click here) Category: Music CD See more new music releases 
|
|---|
Buy this Music CD at online store in your country
Canadian Music Store
Canadian Music Store
Free Music Notes for Made to Love Magic
Free Music Review: The Return of Drake's Spirit
Hit: 5 Stars
I must say that when I heard about the gathering of these recordings, I imagined it the work of vultures squeezing a few more pounds and dollars, out of material that might have been rejected earlier for good reasons.I'm so glad to say that I was absolutely wrong!
Indeed, this album is comprised from outtakes, demos and alternate versions from his output -unfortunately limited by his suicide- yet the result is not the shameless hawking of sub par stuff. Quite in the contrary, it is more nectar from one of the most influential Folk singer-songwriters who ever lived.
Nick Drake's spirit is back in 13 gorgeous tunes -including even a new song, Tow The Line- reminding us of his keen talent for introspective moods, and tender melodies that could create an intimate moment even in a busy NYC subway trains.
After all, although Drake died so lamentably young at 26, he managed to influence several generations of young men and women who went on, in their own right to be distinct folk voices themselves. From Elliott Smith to Devendra Banhart, Damien Rice or Joanna Newsom, the sad and thoughtful touch of Nick Drake's universe has bore its influence.
I can only think of Tim Buckley, his graceful and doomed contemporary in the States as having etched a similar deep course in the new Folk scene.
If you haven't heard Drake before, this may not be the place to start -although I don't know how it could hurt- since those three albums, which he released while still alive, might offer you a better sense of what he was after and a beautiful example of the integrity and development of each of those song-cycles.
Gathered finally thirty years after his death, the songs included here, as different as they may be to the Drake-refined ear, still represent a stronger set than most contemporary Folk offerings.
Sadness well expressed, with the poetic depth found here, could never cease to speak to any age. Sadness turns beauty, when you are as talented as Nick Drake.
Enter this album expecting to be awed by its quiet marvel, and let your heart be educated by his timeless spirit.
Free Music Review: The Compleat Nick Drake
Hit: 5 Stars
There isn't much Nick Drake floating around. If you have the three records he issued while he was alive, though, this one will get you as close to complete as I think you need to be.
His most beautiful song, "Hanging On A Star," one of the very last ones he recorded, is here. I played it this morning-into-afternoon, over and over, the CD player on repeat. It was an effort to take it off (and put on Nick's "Bryter Later.") He never played guitar better and his voice never sounded so frail and damaged as it does here. If you must find his "suicide note," which, well, many seem to be looking for, go no further: "Why leave me hanging on a star/When you deem me so high?/Why leave me sailing on the sea/When you hear me so clear?" I find it unaccountable that not a word I've read about this record even mentions this song, a hidden gem if ever music held one.
The rest of the record is a perfect mix, some spare voice-and-guitar arrangements (some of songs that appeared on his albums with more elaborate arrangements), a few sporting the tasteful flourishes of flute, strings, and Richard Thompson's superlative guitar that so many who misunderstand Drake's atmospherics mistake for overkill. There's not an instrument playing on any of Nick Drake's records that Nick didn't want there, doing precisely what it's doing. Take anything you've heard on any Drake piece away and the piece would be lessened by it.
This isn't a studio release; but the people who mattered most to Drake's life and career put it together. And it sounds as if Nick paced it and arranged it. He certainly made the music. And if you want Nick's "fourth album," this ranks right up there with the other three in my book.
Free Music Review: Surprises from the Vault (and the potting shed)
Hit: 5 Stars
When I first read about this album, before hearing it, I was disappointed to think that it was really a rehash of the Nick Drake material we've heard before. OK, I was wrong! One thing this album gives us in these gorgeous songs is an in-depth look at Nick's Guitar playing. We get to hear what River Man really sounds like, as well as Mayfair, a brand new song from the last session called Tow the Line, a great live studio take of Three Hours, the final session remastered -- as well as remastered editions of Joey and Clothes of Sand -- and more. Robert Kirby adds his original string arrangements to two songs, from a tape he had in his potting shed! Nick's guitar and his playing have a clarity here that is stronger than on Time of No Reply. What this album also does is help cast Nick's last session in a different light. When the Fruit Tree booklet notes were written two decades ago, the final four songs were supposedly sqeezed out of a depressed young man who was all out of songs. Listening to them now, they appear to be the first few songs of the fourth Nick Drake album, never completed due to his accidental death. Even Black Dog doesn't sound terrifying, as the Fruit Tree booklet notes then made it out to be. We tend to make up stories, particularly about artists who died young. Forget what you have heard and just LISTEN to Nick's songs, to their depth and beauty.Free Music Review: Simply Magical
Hit: 5 Stars
I stumbled across this CD a week or so after visiting Tanworth in Arden and Nicks grave..a coincidence I am sure but still !!!
This does Nick justice, and everyone involved in putting this compilation together should be proud of their achievements.
The fact that many of the tracks on this CD did not make an 'official' appearance when nick was alive does NOT diminish them
If you have never heard Nick Drake before then this is as good a place to start...then go and buy Five Leaves Left
Free Music Review: Serendipity
Hit: 5 Stars
I first discovered Nick Drakes music while watching the movie Serendipity. I fell in love with "The Northern Sky" and they also use the beginning of the song "Black Eyed Dog" here and there about the movie. His music Haunted me, I downloaded them and listened to them and continue to this day to listen to his words.
I never read anything on him until today, I didnt even know he passed. His music formed new meaning as I discovered more and more about his life.