The Pentangle – Basket of Light

Another crate-digging find in my teens. God, the cover art still gets me – it’s so eerie but very beautiful – and it feels like every track of this record is embedded in every cell of my body. Just listen to the way instruments announce the opening of the album, the way they knit together at the beginning of the first track, ‘Light Flight’ are just unbelievable. The sound of those drums, so full of air and space, the beauty of Danny Thompson’s double bass. The bass is like a song to me. The instruments carry you up with them through ‘Springtime Promises’ – you can almost smell the blossoms on the trees – to the downwards shift into ‘Lyke-Wake Dirge’, which is so deep and so stirring. This shows what the sound of folk-rock can do, going so deeply into different moods and emotions.