13. Van MorrisonAstral Weeks
This album has been a long-standing inspiration for me but I recently rediscovered it and had to have it on constant repeat for days on end. I’m realising now how many of my choices were recorded around 1968 or ’69 and wondering why I hark back to that particular era. On reflection, though, I know I’ve used this word ‘timeless’ a lot but this is another hands-down example and it makes me wonder at the legacy and open vision of that time and the huge gratitude I have for it.
I love the fact that this album, whether actually made in two weeks as legend has it or not, was made absolutely live, producer Lewis Merenstein putting Morrison together in the studio with a bunch of jazz musicians who he’d never played with and mixing it live "on the board". The result is free-form and, again, I want to say spacious. This is what happens when human beings go beyond their comfort zone. Alchemy happens.
