Search - Nick Drake :: Time Has Told Me

The Complete Home Recordings...

B. Bowman | Jersey, United States | 02/09/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This 44 song collection contains the complete home recordings of Nick Drake. The back of the CD states that all material is previously unreleased in this form. The songs on disc one are primarily other songwriters' material and are also available on the CD titled "Tanworth In Arden 1967-68". Disc one also contains a track titled "Nick's Monologue" which is three minutes of Drake speaking into his tape recorder, interesting to hear simply because it is the only known recording of Drake speaking. Also noteworthy is the version of "Joey" which Drake performs on a twelve string guitar for the first and only time according to the liner notes. Disc two contains studio recordings of "Time Has Told Me", "Saturday Sun", and "Thoughts of Mary Jane" and guitar tracks of "Black Eyed Dog" and "Rider On The Wheel". The majority of disc two consists of home recordings of Drake's original music. One of my favorites is the version of "Place To Be", which has a guitar part that is radically different than the studio version on the "Pink Moon" album. The fingerpicking on this version is unbelievable in its precision and I only wish that film existed of Drake playing so I could see it with my own eyes. There are two home versions of "Parasite" included which document Drake's experimentation with the guitar arrangement for the song. In addition, there are several different versions of an instrumental titled "Brittle Days" which Drake plays variations of on piano and guitar. I had read of his meticulous work on his music and the repeated versions of this instrumental are proof of the tinkering he did with his songs. The package contains brief liner notes written by guitarist Scott Appel. I admit that I am a Nick Drake completist and bought this mainly to hear more of his guitar work than is otherwise available. Due to the high price of this CD I doubt that someone unfamiliar with Nick Drake's music would purchase this collection, but as a general warning to the uninitiated these are demos of varying sound quality and I wouldn't recommend this to a newcomer to Nick Drake. If you are a die hard fan though, this is a worthwhile purchase."