Your chance to own...NICK DRAKE: THE 3 STUDIO ALBUMS:

I am selling all my vinyl one-by-one, starting with the rarest and most sought after, finally, as I need the space and the cash, sadly, so many of the sales are rather reluctant! Check out my other items! I have had these records from new and they have been very carefully looked after. They have been kept in their original plastic sleeves and have been stored upright and in a smoke and pet free home.

With all 3 records both the record itself and the sleeves are in excellent condition (near mint really - and certainly as good as if bought new) with no scratches, dents or nicks, so it plays very well. I have very good playing equipment and have looked after my personal record collection very well.

The music on these records, as many of you will know, has stood the test of time...they are cult, classic albums.

TRACK LISTING:

TRACK LISTING:

SIDE ONE:

Bryter Layter, 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. Horn, flute and string 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. It's definitely not the same mood music as his starker work, but it's still a fine showcase for Nick Drake. --Lorry Fleming

Description
After crafting a debut album full of beauteous, somber chamber-folk, Nick Drake pulled something of an about-face with the follow-up, BRYTER LAYTER. With a bright, sparkling production and orchestrations that occasionally border on Easy Listening, the framework is light and airy where FIVE LEAVES LEFT was dark and foreboding. The key, however, is that Drake's artfully expressed inner turmoil peeks through at every turn in the lyrics and in his understated-but-heartfelt vocaldelivery.
"At the Chime of a City Clock" finds Drake facing existential despair at every turn, despite an almost-lugubrious string arrangement. Perhaps the crucial moment of BRYTER LAYTER occurs on "Poor Boy", where female backing vocalists literally mock the singer's anguished laments. Clearly,for as much as Drake's heart and soul were bared in every note of his music, he was self-aware enough to know that his disillusioned-romantic view of the world was one that put him on the fringes of society. Of course, some 25 years later,his early-1970s work would find a much wider audience, eventhough the initial era of the sensitive singer/songwriter had long since passed.

PINK MOON (Island records, 1970/2000, SVLP 172, stereo on 180g heavy weight vinyl) - GATEFOLD with some lyrics and photograph.

TRACK LISTING:

A stark, solo 28-minute adieu, Pink Moon was the last album Nick Drake lived to complete. That it proved to be his last album lends a suicidal urgency, and much has since been read into its staccato bleakness. But even before his previous album, Bryter Layter, was released, Nick had decided that the next one would be just him and a guitar--"no frills" he insisted. There is little comfort to be found in songs like "Know" or "Parasite" but, in an irony Nick would have appreciated, an American car commercial featuring the haunting title track recently alerted a huge new audience to his music. Digital remastering has enhanced the sound of all Nick's albums, but perhaps Pink Moon has benefited most: its aural environment, now all-enveloping, lending a pristine clarity to that matchless singing and playing. Sombre it may be, but it is a mistake to view Pink Moon as a tombstone--or, indeed, Nick Drake as a victim. Enjoy his music. He did. --Patrick Humphries

Description
It's widely reported that by the time Nick Drake got aroundto recording his third and final album, PINK MOON, his already-precarious mental/emotional state had drastically deteriorated. In a deep depression, Drake recorded a brace of soloacoustic tunes, dropped the tape off unannounced at the label's office one day, and that was the last the world at large ever heard of Drake's music.
The results of those solo sessions were as harrowing and stark as anything by Robert Johnson or Charley Patton. Enclosed in an inner world of psychological distress, Drake recorded PINK MOON's dispatches from a private hell that was simultaneously terrifying and beautiful. Both the lyrics and the melodic motifs are pared to the bone here, their simplicity making them all the more immediately striking. The most nakedly emotional and disturbingmoment is probably "Parasite", a visceral-but-mysterious account of a disconsolate soul roaming through the world in search of succour, with Drake taking the starring role, ultimately offering, "take a look, you may see me in the dirt". This was the end of the road for Nick Drake in more ways than one, but just the beginning for the scores of songwriters subsequently inspired by his bleak-but-beautiful visions.

PLEASE READ THIS INFORMATION VERY CAREFULLY:

POSTAGE COSTS: UK = £10, Europe = £15, USA/Far East = £20, Australia/New Zealand = £25. Payment by paypal only please, and must be paid with 48 hours of end of auction: Serious bidders only. Buyers with no or only negative feedback please contact me before bidding or your bid will be withdrawn. I package very well and dispatch promptly - recorded delivery, and often next day! (see my feedback!) I always give positive feedback wherever possible and expect the same in return. I always try to be as clear, accurate and honest as I can with my descriptions and photographs. Please feel free to email me with any questions you might have and I will do my best to answer them.

HAPPY BIDDING! Thanks for looking and good luck with the auction.