Pilgrims ’ Progress Vashti Bunyan in four albums, by Andrew Male.

Some Things Just Stick In Your Mind

★★★★

(FatCat/DiCristina, 2007) All of Bunyan’s surviving pop singles and demos from 1964 to 1967, now best viewed as the remains of a bold experiment to reposition the ’60s female pop song as a wintry place of melancholy, heartbreak and disillusionment. The influence of carols, nursery rhymes and hymns is strong but so is a love of Dylan’s acerbity and wit and Everlys harmonies.

Just Another Diamond Day

★★★★★ (Philips, 1970)

When released in December 1970, this “document of a pilgrimage” already seemed part of a bygone romantic age. Then again, it was never intended as a reflection of reality but a picture of a dream, the wistful songs intended to lift the spirits of its songwriter. These days it has exactly that effect on the listener, a collection of protective lullabies guiding you to a safe place.

Lookaftering

★★★★ (FatCat, 2005)

In its production and its themes this is very much a companion record to

Diamond Day, while documenting Bunyan’s post-travelling life of children and domesticity. Just as Joe Boyd assembled the cream of the folk music community to record Diamond

Day, producer Max Richter brought in ‘freak folk’ luminaries Devendra Banhart, Joanna Newsom and Adem to add colour and depth to Bunyan’s delicate songs.

Heartleap

★★★★★ (FatCat, 2014)

The intention was to record and produce herself, almost as an echo of those early 1964 demos, but for songs rich with emotional experience. Addressing subjects she had previously avoided (her mother, her depression) but bound up in images from dreams, it is an ethereal, shimmering whisper of an album, rich in an elusive magic and always demanding another listen.