Bryter Layter

Released on Island Records on March 5, 1971, Bryter Layter was Nick Drake's second album, recorded the previous year with producer Joe Boyd and engineer John Wood. Where his debut Five Leaves Left had been spare and largely acoustic, Bryter Layter reached for a brighter, more urbane sound, adding bass and drums, horn and string arrangements by Robert Kirby, and guest contributions from members of Fairport Convention.

The album's most unusual session came when John Cale, then in London recording his own Desertshore at the same Sound Techniques studio, heard what Boyd and Wood were working on and asked to contribute. Cale ended up playing viola, harpsichord, celeste, and organ across two tracks, Northern Sky and Fly, adding a baroque, faintly psychedelic texture that stands apart from the rest of the record.

Despite the more accessible arrangements and hopes from Drake, Boyd, and Island founder Chris Blackwell that it would be a commercial breakthrough, Bryter Layter sold poorly and drew only mixed reviews at the time, in part because Drake refused to tour or promote it. It has since become his most critically acclaimed work, later ranked among the great British albums of the era, and its blend of melancholy songwriting and lush orchestration influenced a wide range of later artists.

Critical opinion on the album has shifted dramatically since 1971. Pitchfork rated it 9.7 out of 10 on reappraisal, and it has since appeared on Q's list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever, NME's list of the Greatest Albums of the 1970s, and Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Northern Sky, the closing track on side two, is the song most frequently singled out from the record: NME named it the greatest English love song of modern times in 2004, three decades after Island declined to release it as a single.