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Coinciding with her 80th Birthday, Vashti Bunyan has today announced Lookaftering – Expanded Edition, a reissue of her legendary second album, out on 7 February 2025 via FatCat Records. This expanded edition includes the original studio album along with a second LP / disc of demos, an alternate take, and a live performance version.
It also features reflective sleeve notes from Vashti, producer Max Richter, Devendra Banhart, and FatCat’s Dave Howell, as well as a 16-page lyric booklet featuring a collection of paintings by Vashti’s daughter Whyn Lewis – paintings that they both say have closely, and coincidentally, reflected the lyrics of the album.
Accompanying the annoucement is a demo of ‘If I Were’ (2001).
When we interviewed Vashti in 2022, following the publication of her autobiography ‘Wayward‘, she revealed that at the time of her rediscovery, music had been so far from her mind that she didn’t even own a copy of her legendary Joe Boyd-produced album Just Another Diamond Day, which featured Fairport Convention’s Simon Nicol and Dave Swarbrick, The Incredible String Band’s Robin Williamson, and Nick Drake arranger Robert Kirby.
“I only had a copy of the first single” she told us. “I’d left it on a window sill and it all curled up, around the edges. I’ve got it on my wall, all curled up. But Diamond Day, I had no copy – I gave them all away when it first came it, I didn’t keep one,” although she adds that others retained their copies, and she does now have an original copy in her possession.
“I was visiting my sister a couple of years ago; she lives in New York – where she’s lived all my adult life. She came into the room with something behind her back, and she said, ‘I thought you might like to have this old thing.’ And miraculously, it was a copy I’d sent her back in 1970, and what was so lovely about it was that it was well played, it was all scratched up, the cover was a little bit faded and torn – so she had loved it.
“I never knew” Her kids had played it, and that was lovely to me; she had an original copy; it was very special, very special.”
The album became very special to many others, including all of those involved in ‘Lookaftering’ – Devendra Banhart, Johanna Newson, Adem Ilhan, Robert Kirby and members of the band Vetiver, all of whom jumped at the opportunity to be there. Max Richter recalls, “It felt like a community project; a family of people coming together”.
DevendraBanhart said: “Lookaftering is a quiet prayer for a world left behind, a remembrance of a world that could have been but never was, a Lookforwarding to a world that may yet still be… As ethereal and haunted as these eleven songs may be, they are also rooted in the earthly magic of wisdom born from experience. Something so rare and honest it’s nearly otherworldly in its total human-ness.”
Speaking of the reissue, Vashti said: “the beautiful photograph of Max in the studio playing wine glasses with his young daughter’s violin bow, brings it all back to me – how very fortunate I have been.”
Lookaftering – Expanded Edition
Formats:
DIG / CD x 2, Gatefold 2 x LP (featuring sleeve notes, and a 16 page lyric and booklet featuring paintings by Whyn Lewis).
Release date: 7th February 2025
Pre-order/pre-save here
Tracklisting:
1. Lately
2. Here Before
3. Wayward
4. Hidden
5. Against The Sky
6. Turning Backs
7. If I Were
8. Same But Different
9. Brother
10. Feet Of Clay
11. Wayward Hum
12. Lately (Live, The Echo, Los Angeles, 2006)
13. Here Before (Demo, 2005)
14. Wayward (Alternative take, 2005)
15. Hidden (Demo, 2002)
16. Against The Sky (Demo, 2004)
17. Turning Backs (Demo, 2003)
18. If I Were (Demo, 2001)
19. Same But Different (Demo, 2005)
20. Brother (Demo, 2002)
21. Feet Of Clay (Demo, 2002)
