Album Review: The Making Of Five Leaves Left [Box Set] by Nick Drake

Now we have this correspondingly thorough issue, on four LPs or 4CDs, with a beautifully produced book detailing the range of recording sessions (and much else), leading up to the final, July 1969, release of the first album. Thus, one can follow on the first three discs the evolution of the record: a set (probably a rehearsal for an intended gig) recorded on relatively unsophisticated equipment in the room of a fellow Cambridge undergraduate, Paul de Rivaz, around February 1968; demos from a session at Sound Techniques a few weeks later, overseen by producer Joe Boyd and engineer John Wood, the quarter-inch mono tape of which was preserved by Nick's close friend Beverley Martyn; and a range of alternative takes from the Boyd / Wood supervised final sessions, November '68 to April '69. Not only are the production values of this release highly impressive, the choice and sequencing of the tracks as well as the precise documentation of the specifics of each recording provide a model of how this kind of archive material should be presented.

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With the Nick Drake story now all but consumed by its dominant narratives of cultdom, tragedy and myth it's nice to be occasionally reminded that in the late 60s he was just another talented young hopeful in a long line of talented young hopefuls trying to make a name for himself. If Bryter Layter was the lusciously arranged summation of an artist in the fullness of his talent and Pink Moon was the stark unadorned masterpiece, Drake's '69 debut, Five Leaves Left reveals the promise and potential in its first display. This expansive and sensitively assembled 4CD/4LP box set fully justifies its title by including a plethora of try-outs, cast-offs and demo versions which showcase those early songs in their various stages of evolution.

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