Just Another Diamond Day

After a brief fling as a Marianne Faithfull-style mod-pop chanteuse, Vashti Bunyan dropped out of the London scene, riding up to the Outer Hebrides with her boyfriend in a horse and buggy. Written on the road and on the rural Scottish islands themselves, these songs are delicate and pastoral, with Bunyan's clear, bell-like voice and unembellished acoustic guitar front and center. A sense of melancholy prevails, although the childlike joy of "Lily Pond" and the jaunty "Jog Along Bess" lighten the somewhat disconsolate mood considerably.