Guardian
Dave Simpson
It's taken 35 years for Bunyan to follow up her revered 1970 debut Just Another Diamond Day. In her absence, Bunyan has developed superfans including Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom and electronic man Max Richter, who contribute acoustic guitar, harp and, comparatively raucously, piano to this collection of stunningly simple songs. In Wayward, Bunyan muses how she once wanted to be armed with a suitcase, "the one with road dust on my shoes." But if there's a slight wistfulness, she seems to have found equal potency in anonymous rural escape. With her voice so ethereal and distant it's virtually medieval, Lookaftering as is much 1570 as 1970. Her hushed, magical songs conjure up not so much "a world without end", but one without time at all.
BBC
Chris Long
Vashti Bunyan's story is possibly the most romantic that music has ever known. After being ejected from her mid-60s art school for being unable to choose between songs and painting, she was discovered by Stones svengali Andrew Loog Oldham and looked set to become a star.
However, the recordings she made never surfaced. Disenchanted with the industry, she packed her few belongings onto a cart and made an epic horse-drawn journey north to Donovan's colony on the Isle of Skye. Two years later, she arrived to find that the Scottish Dylan had gone, leaving her with just the collection of songs she had created en route.
Those songs, thanks in no small part to the Incredible String Band and Fairport Convention, made up her debut album, Just Another Diamond Day, a twinkling collection of other-worldy folk released with little fanfare in 1970. After that, Bunyan vanished. So legendary is that self-exile that Mark Radcliffe used it in his recent book, Northern Sky, as metaphor for the ultimate get-away-from-it-all disappearing act.
With all that in mind, no-one ever expected this, her follow-up, a mere 35 years later. Its the kind of gap that makes Kate Bush and The Stone Roses look like hard workers. A web search a few years back revealed to Vashti that her debut had become something of a lost gem, a cult classic passed from collector to collector, and it spurred her to develop Lookaftering.
It is a worthy successor. Rather than being a simple echo of her masterpiece, Lookaftering is distinct in its own beauty, shimmering with her soporific tones and floating on the gentle wonder of her melodies.
As with Just Another Diamond Day, Bunyan has chosen to work with some of the finest and most challenging musicians around. Where before Dave Swarbrick and Robin Williamson gave her accompaniment, now it is the turn of Joanna Newsom, Devendra Banhart and Adem to offer their talents in support.
Her songwriting has developed, if only in the lengthening of her compositions, but none of her tender charm has diminished in those years of absence. Her topics are, as ever, drawn from her own life, taking in motherhood, the loss of a brother, the loss of freedom and the constraints of domesticity along the way. That honesty only adds to the lulling intimacy her voice already offers and makes the album title, a personalised word that means taking care of someone, seem like the most perfect description possible.
Lookaftering would have been a remarkable album even without Bunyan's story to accompany it. The fact that it is the work of a singer whose brilliance was thought long-lost to the world makes it an instant classic.
All Music Guide
Thom Jurek
Much has been made of Vashti Bunyan's 1969 unheard-at-the-time Just Another Diamond Day. Produced by Joe Boyd, it featured the singer and songwriter backed by a small string quartet. Discouraged by the sleazy ethics of the music biz, she retired and concentrated on raising a family, gardening, and other productive matters. The set was re-released on CD in 2000, and has been rightfully heralded as a classic by virtually everyone who has heard it. Sought out, she re-entered the arena, worked and collaborated with Devendra Banhart and Simon Raymonde, and was the featured vocalist on Animal Collective's fine Prospect Hummer EP. Thirty-six years later, Lookaftering, Bunyan's second album, was released by Fat Cat. Produced by post-classical composer and atmosphere impresario Max Richter — who co-arranged the set with Bunyan — it features many of her collaborators, including Banhart, Joanna Newsome, Adem, Adam Price, Robert Kirby (who arranged the strings on her first record as well as Nick Drake's albums), Otto Hauser, and Kevin Barker (Espers/Currituck County). This is not just some neo-acid folk gathering of the stars, however. Bunyan's voice and songs are always center stage, and Richter's production is always subtle, creating suitable, unintrusive backdrops for that magical sound that comes from her mouth to slip from the ether into sound. There is a slight bit of quavering in her grain now, but it's beautiful as ever. Where Just Another Diamond Day concentrated on living an idyllic life as a part of nature and creation itself, Lookaftering is a tale of doing just that, looking after children, lovers, friends, surroundings, and the changes in life like living and dying. Her melodies are delicate, inviting, and delicate without the least bit of twee posturing. Richter's restraint in adding the right touch of piano and glockenspiel here, the precise use of recorders there, and Newsome's harp playing all slip and shimmer in the backdrop as Bunyan's voice and fingerpicked guitar walk softly through her songs. On "Wayward" she sings, "Didn't want to be the one, the one who's left behind/While the other one goes out to life and comes back home to find me...I wanted to be the one with road dust on my boots/And a single silver earring and a suitcase full of notes/And a band of wayward children with their fathers left behind," but in either sense she finds "world without ending." There's no regret in these songs, just the acceptance of life on its own terms, and the magic found therein. Lookaftering is indescribably beautiful, whether the setting is a Fender Rhodes or harp and dulcimer such as on "If I Were," kissed by sparse strings, or the recorders and guitars that frame her voice in their center, singing about the process of living, asking questions, and being content to live in between. Lookaftering is a gorgeously considered, stunningly and sensitively crafted album by an artist who is truly outside of all fashion, all time, and even space. Without the technological trappings, this album, timeless and spaceless as it is, could have been made 300 years ago, but that it was made in the 21st century blesses you even more. It's simply unlike anything else out there — except perhaps Just Another Diamond Day. What a welcome return. Though her collaborators dream of making recordings this pure, full of whispery strangeness, and unselfconscious charm, Bunyan is as singular and out-of-the-box an artist as there is. Welcome back.
Dusted
Michael Crumsho
Released to little fanfare or acclaim in 1970, Just Another Diamond Day was already the young Vashti Bunyan's second go-round at making a career out of music. But much like her earlier forays into the rock world (courtesy of a Jagger/Richards penned debut single for Decca called "Some Things Just Stick in Your Mind"), her tenure as a member of Joe Boyd's famed stable of folk musicians wasn't made to last. Instead, she drifted away to Ireland and spent the bulk of the next 30 years focusing on raising a family.
Although it barely resonated at the time, Bunyan's debut spent the next three decades slowly gathering steam, eventually emerging as a cult collector's item. Around the turn of the new century, a whole host of younger musicians began paying their respects to her wispy folk; collaborations with the likes of Kieren Hebden, Devendra Banhart, and the Animal Collective quickly followed. And now, some 35 years after the release of her debut long-player comes Lookaftering, Bunyan's second album.
In addition to being cited as an influence by many of today's nascent folkies, Bunyan's music has become a constant namecheck for many journalists seeking to situate recent "freak folk" or "neo-folk" recordings in some larger outsider pantheon. It's rare that such a mythos develops at all, let alone for an artist who released one album and disappeared. In that sense, Lookaftering has the daunting task of not only competing with contemporary musicians, but also with Bunyan's own legacy.
So, let's set history aside for a moment because, honestly, comparing Bunyan's latest to her debut isn’t a fair fight. Lookaftering was produced by Max Richter, the author of a pretty great "post-Classical" record called The Blue Notebooks, and features guest appearances from Banhart, Joanna Newsom, Adem, Mice Parade's Adam Pierce and Espers’ Kevin Barker and Otto Hauser, among others. The guests form a talented support system for Bunyan's breathy, ethereal voice.
As far as the songwriting goes, Lookaftering finds Bunyan in much the same place she was 35 years ago, although her lyrical concerns tend obviously to reflect more matriarchal experiences. For me, Bunyan's music has always been about her iconic voice - beautiful and understated, possessing a remarkable lack of self-consciousness and isolation that made listening to her music feel like eavesdropping. In that sense, it seems like she's hardly missed a beat.
Richter's production is airy and bright, giving Bunyan ample room to breathe. There are electronic touches throughout the disc, such as the backwards bells and delayed vocal chorus of the somber "Here Before," but these are never anything less than tasteful, suitably updating Bunyan's sound for a newer generation. And as stated before, the guests seem quite content to blend in with the background - if you didn't see her name in the notes, you'd probably never have guessed that the lithe harp phrases on "Against the Sky" or "If I Were" came from the hands of Newsom. Richter steps up to his task in fine form, sharing the arrangement credits with Bunyan herself. As such, tracks like "Same But Different" approach baroque figures with cascading strings that never sound out of place.
Some find the mere prospect of this album troubling. After all, why mess with a clean track record after all these years? Undoubtedly, I can envision a few cynical bastards pegging this album as a little too adult contempo, as it lacks the sweet haze of Joe Boyd's earlier production. But that misses the point entirely. Although I'm sure we all wish for it, those of us without a lifelong legacy are in the fortunate position of never having to compare each and every creative impulse we pursue with things that we have already accomplished. The prospect of always having everything we do measured against one moment in our lives would be enough to make the weaker amongst us never leave the house. That Vashti Bunyan had the courage to step out of seclusion and follow up her classic debut is admirable. That she was able to do so with an excellent batch of songs is a joy to behold, pure and simple.
Pitchfork
Matthew Murphy
It's been 35 years since the release of UK folk singer Vashti Bunyan's solo debut Just Another Diamond Day, which translates to roughly 240 years in music industry terms. And now, with the release of her second album Lookaftering, Bunyan has completed a comeback more reminiscent of pre-war country blues artists like Dock Boggs or Bukka White, whose performing and recording careers were resurrected during the 1960s folk revival, rather than anyone from the pop/rock era. Like those old folk and bluesmen, Bunyan returns to a musical landscape that's been unrecognizably altered. But unlike the later recordings of those performers-- which consisted primarily of reworking their older material-- Lookaftering represents the full-fledged reawakening of a still-vital talent, ready to cast aside her decades-long artistic hibernation and re-ignite her creative fires.
At that time, after the small initial pressing of Diamond Day failed to find an audience, a disheartened Bunyan left the city and music behind, packing her wagon to quietly raise children and animals in the Scottish Borders and rural Ireland. In the meantime, however, her album slowly built a reputation as a lost classic. So when Diamond Day was reissued in Britain to great acclaim in 2000, Bunyan commenced her gradual return to the spotlight. Since then she's made cameo appearances on albums by such fans as Devendra Banhart and Piano Magic, and earlier this year partnered with Animal Collective on the charming Prospect Hummer EP.
On Lookaftering, it comes as a relief to hear not only how pristine Bunyan's delicate vocals remain but that she has retained her understated abilities as a songwriter, despite going decades without picking up a guitar. Taking its title from a self-invented word that refers to taking care of something or someone-- as well as to the process of looking back on the past-- Lookaftering deftly covers both these themes in ample measure. In many regards, this collection seems a wistful, measured reflection upon the long-ago daydreams of Diamond Day and the sweet sadness of all that goes by, while managing to retain the same tranquil, out-of-time intimacy that has allowed her debut to age so gracefully.
Lookaftering also features tasteful instrumental contributions from such guests as Banhart, Joanna Newsom, and Mice Parade's Adam Pierce, but Bunyan's most crucial collaborator proves to be producer Max Richter. Throughout the album, Richter's impeccable orchestrations of piano, strings, and woodwinds (co-arranged by Bunyan) masterfully echo Joe Boyd's classic work with Nick Drake, Fairport Convention, and on Diamond Day; as well as Larry Fallon's chamber-folk arrangements on Nico's Chelsea Girl. As with Diamond Day, this careful balance is critical to the album's success, since Vashti's feathery, near-whispered vocals could be easily capsized by a heavy-handed production.
"Indifference is the coldest hand/ It is the wave that clears the sand," sings Bunyan on "Turning Backs", an exquisitely orchestrated track she has said was written with Nick Drake in mind, but that might also provide insight into the reasons behind her long absence. Her frustration with the domestic life also crops up on "Wayward", on which she describes "days going by lost in clouds of flour and whitewashing," before later sighing, "I wanted to be the one with road-dust on my boots."
Elsewhere, though, these songs look on the past with a shivery, almost tangible longing. "Here Before", is an elegant ode to the happy mysteries of parenthood ("Once I had a child/ He was wild in the moonlight/ He could do it all/ Like he'd been here before") while on "Against the Sky" she depicts a city-dweller nostalgic for her old farmstead ("The hill behind the old house/ I can trace it with my finger.") For some listeners, such nostalgia might teeter uncomfortably close to sentimentality, but even on personal tracks such as the brief elegy "Brother", Bunyan keeps her touch impossibly light, reflecting only for a moment before quickly turning another page. Lookaftering closes with a wordless reprise of "Wayward", as she quietly hums the song's melody as though unaware that anybody might be listening. But, hopefully, with the arrival at last of her stunning second album, Vashti Bunyan need no longer worry about her music going unheard.