Vashti Bunyan: From Here to Before

In the mid-60s, Vashti Bunyan was desperate to be a famous pop star, and when she hooked up with The Rolling Stones’ manager and pop svengali, Andrew Loog Oldham, signed to Decca and recorded a single written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, her dreams would appear to have been close to being realised. Yet, hyped as ‘the next Marianne Faithful’, a tag that never sat comfortably with her, the pop career stalled. In 1968, thoroughly disillusioned with the music industry, she heard about a creative colony being set up on the Isle of Skye. Along with her boyfriend, she bought a horse and cart and they set off from the London suburbs she’d gravitated to, spending two years travelling to the far north of Scotland.

Her experiences would inform the making of Just Another Diamond Day, the record she made with the inimitable Joe Boyd. While it made little impact at the time, the album was revered and its reputation grew. It became a huge influence on a generation of folk-minded artists, name-checked by the likes of Devendra Banhart and Adem. Kieran Evans’ beautiful documentary features footage of the enigmatic, charming Vashti preparing for a concert at the Barbican, indicative of the revival of interest in her music, and sees her retrace the journey that would inspire her landmark work.
Michael Hayden