Van Morrison

I discovered "Astral Weeks" twice: after my first listens it struck me as beautiful but a bit distant, so I ended up shelving it. Once I dusted it off again — for whatever reason — I found it possessed of an extraordinary freshness and intensity, confirming the rule that sometimes it's just a matter of catching the right moment: if the "gateway" is open and the heart receptive, the job is done. If I had to sum it up in one somewhat obvious sentence, I'd say that with "Astral Weeks" I discovered, more than a handful of extraordinary songs, a whole category of the soul.

Side one opens with the title track itself, carried along on a tight acoustic accompaniment from which blossom a thousand filigrees of flute (John Payne), vibraphone (Warren Smith), hiccuping bass (Richard Davis), a delicate drone of strings, and the extraordinary voice of Van "The Man" bringing heavy hues to this bucolic, slippery landscape: the effect is that of an epic encounter, an incurable physicality that unravels its whole spiritual being in a (fruitful) search for the shadow line that both joins and separates soul and body.

The introduction to "Beside You" is a brief, mysteriously intense arpeggio (Van Morrison himself and Jay Berliner on guitars), a fine send-off for this folk/jazz phantom on the loose, a viscous desert of feelings adrift amid loose exchanges of flute and bass, its melodic line wandering into undefined territory, pulled in a thousand directions by a vocal at the mercy of deep drives, instincts and impulses. More conventional — in the best possible sense — is the following "Sweet Thing", a breakneck yet utterly delicate piece of folk, a parade of the same elements now tamed by an insistent guitar and by the first meaningful emergence of drums amid a froth of jazzy brushwork with a heart in turmoil: needless to say, towering over it all is Van's voice, projected right to the point where bitterness meets the sweet heart of life.

This is the point where the first of the album's three aces is played (and the rest — to keep the metaphor going — doesn't rank below the King...): it's "Cyprus Avenue", the magic of a device at once complex and light, an intrigue of guitar, harpsichord, bass (staggering!), slippery strings and roots violin, the conspiracy of a voice immersed in its own sacred mud, the calm progress of an expression toward its own absolute fulfilment.

Ace number two follows hot on its heels, opening the (theoretical) side "B", and threatens to utterly shatter the heart's fragile defences: "The Way Young Lovers Do" is a boogie/jazz frenzy bastardised by an unfailingly folk attitude, or if you prefer, a staggering accumulation of elements and free-flowing phrasing built around an irresistible melodic crescendo. It's no surprise that it was covered by the magnificent voice of Jeff Buckley on his "Live at Sin-é" (everyone can pick their favourite version): in any case, this isn't the only debt poor Jeff owed to Van Morrison.

The precious "Madame George" takes a calmer path, an ethereal nocturnal dialogue between innocence and risk, a lyric/story that "looms" a little too large over the music, even if we're in the presence of another vocal performance that no Springsteen to come could ever ignore. But then comes the third (wonderful) ace, namely "Ballerina", an extraordinarily unhurried melody, startled by mandolin incursions and the sugary epilepsy of bass and drums, with airy string decorations and the watery touches of a restless vibraphone, for the joy and sorrow of a towering Van Morrison as he weaves an unforgettable thread between rawness and balance, between hope, dream and trepidation.

The brief, vibrant epitaph of "Slim Slow Spider", strung along an elusive arc of soprano sax (Payne), is a dark memory of watered-down blues, a fading bass line, a literary stagger of guitar, the drums' sudden plunge into inevitable darkness, the voice folding back into the desperate, welcoming stillness of a soul finally redeemed.

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13/11/2006