The Endless Coloured Ways: The Songs of Nick Drake

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The Gabriels’ many celebrity admirers include Elton John, this year’s headliner, who declared their single Love and Hate to be “probably one of the most seminal records I’ve heard in the last 10 years”, and brought out Lusk as one of his special guests. The latter singer, in fact, triumphantly rescues a raw and rarely covered early demo song off the posthumous Family Tree compilation and turns it into the soaring, strings-laden epic it deserves to be. All very convincing in delivering the chilling message: “Now there’s no time to start anew / Now the party’s through.

The Endless Coloured Ways: The Songs of Nick Drake

asks Polly Jean Harvey in A Child’s Question, July, the penultimate track on her 10th album I Inside the Old Year Dying. The Endless Coloured Ways could have been just another exhibit on the exquisitely curated but ever growing pile of Drake nostalgia.

With Grant’s contribution an obvious standout, The Endless Coloured Ways is abundant in successful cross-genre reimaginings. These interpretations do not necessarily detract from the original art, they just alter the perspective and Nick Drake’s brilliant songwriting still shines through, just under a different guise. I have met Gabrielle before and have heard about her amazing home, but nothing could really prepare me for the beauty of the place. Over its 40 years in business, PIAS has grown to be one of the largest independently-owned music groups in the world, carving out its own in-house recorded music division PIAS [Recordings].

The Endless Coloured Ways: The Songs of Nick Drake - Tradfolk

Last weekend, I travelled over to Wenlock Abbey, home of Gabrielle Drake, to record a video that will accompany the single release on April 12th. Here’s what this album isn’t: easily decipherable, one to hum along to in the Tesco aisles, or a family-friendly listen that’ll absorb the kids in the back of the car as you set off down the A303 on your summer holidays. For me, three things combine in Nick Drake’s music to make it so unique — his voice, the melodies and phrasing of his singing, and the impetus of his guitar playing. A good compilation can be hard to achieve as it can come off disjointed, due to the variety of artists and styles.Certain items can take longer to source than the estimated week, particularly during busy trading periods and may take longer to arrive at ourwarehouse. So it is that one of Nick’s signature songs—unnervingly preoccupied with futility and death—is colored in a gloomy, Vangelis-style electronic ambiance, and a rich, lived-in baritone.

The Endless Coloured Ways: The Songs of Nick Drake - Spotify

It sounds like a doom-laden Stone Roses, and proves that beneath Drake’s frail renditions of his songs lay structures and melodies capable of bearing far heavier loads.Parasite’ by Nick Drake is full of images cut from Summerisle cloth — a mask is lifted from sad clown, people jig in a church with chimes and ‘make the moon for fun’ before somebody changes a rope for a size too small and everyone gets hung… or burnt in a woven willow giant, perhaps. It was really humbling to hear so many similar responses, with everyone saying how important Nick’s music was to them, and how much they wanted to be part of this project. A routinely great artist, much of Sufjan's universal appeal comes from his skills as a gifted narrator, pairing personal musings on love and devotion with commentary on American culture, whilst welding folk and electronica, the ambient and existential.