Zero Degrees of Seperation

Disappearing acts followed by heroic comebacks are not uncommon in the topsy-turvy and emotionally frazzling battlefield of contemporary music. John Lennon retreated to his Dakota Building cocoon for the best part of five years before returning with his chart-topping epitaph Double Fantasy while artists as diverse as Johnny Cash, Tina Turner and Morrissey have all undergone a fall from grace before bouncing back to garner critical garlands and renewed public acclaim.

As phoenix-from-the-ashes tales go however, few have the 'fuck-me' factor of the remarkable rediscovery and renaissance of Vashti Bunyan. Now ensconced alongside fellow sixties folksters such as Bert Jansch and John Renbourn as a musical mentor to nu-folk figureheads like Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom, Bunyan's emergence from wistful flower-power obscurity has been as unlikely as it has been welcome.

Discovered by Rolling Stones svengali Andrew Loog Oldham in the mid-sixties, Bunyan was originally marketed as a kittenish swinging London starlet, very much in the vein of fellow Oldham alumni Marianne Faithfull.
Her girl-next-door charms failed to strike a chord with the listening public however, and, after a string of flops, she retreated, via a horse and cart, to the sanctity of Skye to, in the parlance of the time, 'get her head together in the country'. It was here that Bunyan laid the foundations for her debut album and undisputed masterpiece, Just Another Diamond Day.
Imbued with an air of otherworldly Highland mysticism and pastoral childlike dreaminess, songs like 'Glow Worms', 'Diamond Day' and 'Timothy Grub' may have taken their cues from other psych-folk voyagers like the Incredible String Band and Donovan but their ethereal beauty were entirely of Bunyan's making.

And then - nothing. Despite being recorded with some of Brit-folk's brightest stars, including Fairport Convention violinist Dave Swarbrick and Nick Drake's string-arrangement man Robert Kirby, and released through counter-culture figurehead Joe Boyd's production company, Witchseason, the record bombed and Bunyan retreated into obscurity. As the posthumous reappraisal of Drake's output proved, however, it takes a lot to keep a good neglected classic down. And painfully slowly, but surely, Bunyan's defining statement found a new audience among a new generation of listeners and musicians entranced by her beguiling vision.

This unlikeliest of comebacks started in earnest in 2000 with the CD re-release of the debut album and gathered pace with a series of guest appearances on recordings by the aforementioned Banhart and US psychsters Animal Collective. By 2005 Bunyan was basking in the critical aftermath of her acclaimed second album Lookaftering – released an astonishing 35 years after her first – and was once again sharing her particular musical vision with fans across the world.

She's back playing in Scotland this month as part of a bill that looks like manna from heaven for lovers of wintry off-kilter folk. The gig, entitled Zero Degrees of Separation, takes place at Glasgow's ABC and features Bunyan alongside Adem, Juana Molina and Vetiver - all artists deserving of far more than this measly paragraph - and promises to be a magical night of previously unheard arrangements, collaborations and experiments.

But don't be surprised if Bunyan comes to prominence on the evening – it's where she deserved to be all along.