Vashti Bunyan’s ‘Lookaftering’ is 20 years old. To mark the occasion, and also Vashti’s 80th birthday, an expanded edition is to be released. As well as the original studio album itself, the second disc features demo versions, an alternate take of ‘Wayward’, and a live performances of ‘Lately’. This edition also comes with sleeve notes from Vashti, producer Max Richter, Devendra Banhart and a 16-page lyric booklet featuring a collection of paintings by Vashti's daughter Whyn Lewis – paintings that closely, and coincidentally, reflected the lyrics of the album. Vashti says “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.” Dating from 2001 to 2005, the demos were recorded at home by Vashti, accompanying herself on acoustic and electric guitar and experimenting with synths – from piano to strings, pipe organ, harmonium, recorders and accordion. The sound is, of course, stripped back compared to that of the finished album, but the live version of Lately recorded at an early “comeback” gig in L.A. in 2006, orchestrated as on the record, is absolutely pitch perfect. Listening to the demos and the final versions side-by-side while reading the sleeve notes is a wonderful experience, learning and hearing how the songs and the long-player evolved, with Vashti and Max Richter (who produced - and played on - the album), explaining how all of the artists involved (Devendra Banhart, Johanna Newson, Adem Ilhan, Robert Kirby and members of the band Vetiver), touched by Vashti’s original 1970 ‘Just Another Diamond Day’ album, jumped at the opportunity to be there. As Max Richter recalls, “It felt like a community project; a family of people coming together”.
