Vashti Bunyan – Heartleap

If you can cope with the extreme twee, ‘Heartleap’ is a diamond…

The soft tweeness of cult classic ‘Just Another Diamond Day’ remains on Vashti Bunyan’s latest record, ‘Heartleap’ – released 44 years after her debut and nine years after the Max Richter-produced ‘Lookaftering’.

This one is all her, from pen to production. It’s personal and beautiful. At almost 70, her voice is pretty much unchanged: soft, delicate, breathy, slightly wobbling from the point of note perfection, but dreamy and comforting.

Vashti’s songs are like lullabies, rooted in folk and nature, with gentle picked guitar and a slip of flute, woody sax or ethereal stings. Hippy songster Devendra Banhart again makes an appearance.

If you can cope with the extreme twee, ‘Heartleap’ is a diamond.

7/10

Words: Gemma Hampson

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Listen to ‘Heartleap’ in full via Deezer, below…

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