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**Vashti Bunyan - Just Another Diamond Day**
★★★★☆

In the grand pantheon of lost and found musical treasures, few albums have enjoyed as remarkable a resurrection as Vashti Bunyan's "Just Another Diamond Day." Released in 1970 to the sound of crickets chirping and tumbleweed rolling, this pastoral masterpiece has since become the holy grail of folk revivalists and bedroom pop enthusiasts alike—a testament to the strange alchemy of time and taste that can transform commercial failure into cult legend.

The story behind this album reads like a fairy tale penned by someone who'd consumed too much organic honey and spent far too long staring at wildflowers. In the late 1960s, Bunyan was a young singer-songwriter who'd caught the attention of Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham. After a brief stint recording singles that went nowhere fast, she made a decision that would define both her life and her art: she abandoned the music industry altogether, packed her belongings into a horse-drawn wagon, and embarked on a journey to the Scottish Highlands with her then-boyfriend. It was during this peripatetic period, living off the grid in a cottage without electricity or running water, that she penned the songs that would comprise "Just Another Diamond Day."

The album exists in a genre entirely of its own making—call it whisper-folk, or cottagecore before cottagecore had a name. Bunyan's voice is so delicate it seems to float rather than sing, carrying melodies that feel less composed than discovered, like musical mushrooms found growing in a forest clearing. Her lyrics paint pictures of a world where the biggest concerns are the changing seasons and the behavior of woodland creatures, where modern life's anxieties dissolve into the gentle rhythm of rural existence.

The production, handled by Joe Boyd (who also worked with Nick Drake and Fairport Convention), is appropriately minimal, creating space around Bunyan's voice like morning mist around a meadow. String arrangements by Robert Kirby add gossamer touches that never overwhelm the essential intimacy of the recordings. This is music that demands to be played at low volume, preferably while brewing tea or watching clouds drift by.

The album's standout tracks read like a naturalist's field guide set to music. "Train Song" captures the hypnotic rhythm of rail travel with its chugging acoustic guitar and Bunyan's breathy vocals describing landscapes rolling past a window. "Timothy Grub" tells the tale of a caterpillar's transformation with the wide-eyed wonder of a children's story, while "Glow Worms" creates an entire nocturnal world in just over two minutes. The title track serves as both mission statement and gentle manifesto, suggesting that perhaps every day is indeed just another diamond day if you're paying proper attention.

Upon its initial release, "Just Another Diamond Day" sold roughly as many copies as there were people living in Bunyan's remote Highland village—which is to say, not many. Bunyan herself retreated even further from the music world, raising children and tending gardens while her album gathered dust in remainder bins and the occasional record collector's crate.

But music has a funny way of finding its audience, even if it takes thirty years. By the early 2000s, a new generation of musicians and listeners had discovered Bunyan's work, drawn to its authenticity and otherworldly charm. Artists like Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom, and Fleet Foxes cited her as an influence, and suddenly "Just Another Diamond Day" was being hailed as a lost masterpiece of British folk.

This rediscovery coaxed Bunyan back into the studio after a thirty-five-year hiatus. Her 2005 album "Lookaftering" and 2014's "Heartleap" proved that her gift for crafting delicate, nature-inspired songs hadn't diminished with time, though they lacked the pristine perfection of her debut.

Today, "Just Another Diamond Day" stands as perhaps the ultimate slow-burn success story, an album that found its audience not through marketing campaigns or radio play, but through the patient process of cultural osmosis. It remains a singular achievement—a record that sounds like it was recorded not in a studio but in a secret garden, by someone who understood that sometimes the most radical thing you can do is whisper when everyone else is shouting.