Nick Drake BRYTER LAYTER Vinyl LP ILPS9134 **UK 1ST PRESSING 1970**

	£		225
	$		298

For sale is this wonderful vintage vinyl LP of NICK DRAKE - BRYTER LAYTER on Island Records 1970. This lovely, playable copy is a genuine, very scarce U.K. 1st Pressing of this sought-after Nick Drake album with A1/B1 matrix numbers and textured sleeve in, to say the least, distressed cosmetic condition. The front cover has some losses to the surface. Fortunately the iconic image of Nick Drake with the Guild M20 and remarkable shoes is in tact. The back cover is much better but looks all of its 53 years as does the green Island inner sleeve. The disc though, for all that it has some surface marking, is really special:
Having listened to this album hundreds of times in my life on the mid-1980s Hannibal Boxset, then the much better 1979 pressing and then the digital CD and streamable versions and of course the recent vinyl reissues, I would have said I was familiar with it. But this pressing, for all its undeniable flaws really is revelatory. Since it came into my hands a week or so ago I've listened to it every day and I keep hearing new things: All the detail of Richard Thompson's elaborate guitar on Hazey Jane II, that has always just sounded confused to me, now doesn't. The weirdly bad synching of Robert Kirby's strings on Introduction that makes the CD version almost jarringly unlistenable once you've noticed it is much more forgivingly treated here. All of John Cale's beautiful texture on Fly and Northern sky is suddenly audible in its individual parts. And most of all Nick Drake's guitar, which has always been buried in the mix, barely audible and with all the middle removed is quite distinct here in its own position in the stereo spectrum with a full range of bell-like dynamics, clear and bright like Pink Moon. And now, having spent time with the record, I find the aesthetic flaws of its cover, like its surface crackles add to its authenticity. The matrices in full are:
Side One:  ILPS 9134 A-1 U.  Side Two:  ILPS 9134 B-1 U
Condition*: The sleeve is Good (G) with many flaws - There are significant losses to the surface of the front cover. There is significant edge wear all round, There is a small split to the spine. There is some impression of the disc on the cover and some slight creasing at the corners. There is a faint visible stain on the front bottom L/H side (pictured). There are significant signs of age and handling. The blue-green Island inner sleeve has some discolouration and distressing but the polythene lining is in tact. 
The Disc is Very Good (VG): Still has a glossy black lustre, in normal daylight pretty clean looking, under a direct harsh light there are lots of light surface marks and scuffing visible that don't intrude unduly into the audio. Side two has a couple of more obvious scratches that are audible but not intolerable. There is one that causes a brief skip during Ray Warleigh's sax solo on Poor Boy (which is fine with me). Were it not for the skip this would be a VG+. Throughout playback there is an expected bed of low crackle. The disc has clearly had a lot of play, is a little sibilant in some places and there are moments of slight distortion but even with its flaws the dynamic range and clarity of this mastering are unsurpassable. Overall a really wonderful way to hear this gorgeous Nick Drake album in it's original state. If you know yourself capable of listening past the imperfections of an old record and if, like me, you cannot presently afford the many hundreds of pounds necessary to buy a really tidy copy you might consider this one. I highly recommend it.
Thanks for looking and please feel free to use the "MAKE OFFER" button - I won't mind at all.
*Please note: Grading vinyl is a highly subjective thing. I am not a professional. I am just selling a small number of records. I can only give an honest appraisal based on careful visual inspection and thorough play testing. I do try to describe all significant faults and I certainly won't intentionally hide anything. Please read the description carefully, look at the pictures and make your own mind up. The grading scale I have used  goes from G to NM with VG+ as par. In other words: Good (G), Very Good (VG), Very Good+ (VG+), Excellent (EX) and Near Mint (NM). Anything better than that would be Mint and would be listed as new. Anything worse than Good I probably wouldn't be selling.