The couple of years leading up to the release of
Edge of a Dream found
Bert Jansch getting hip again, with former
Suede man
Bernard Butler and British guitar hero
Johnny Marr singing his praises.
Butler's on board for this album, but so is (surprisingly, perhaps)
Hope Sandoval. For anyone familiar with
Jansch outings like 2000's
Crimson Moon, there are few surprises. A fair number of new compositions are featured, such as the title track and
"All This Remains," but also some old songs like
"I Can't Keep from Crying Sometimes" and
Richard Farina's
"Quiet Joys of Brotherhood," both of which play to
Jansch's strengths. He's not the world's greatest singer by any stretch of the imagination, but he's developed his own quiet way of putting a lyric across. The guests tend to be reverent, as if they're gathered around the feet of the master (which, considering
Jansch was recording before they were born, is apt), with the pointed exception of
Dave Swarbrick, whose career has been as long as
Jansch's (as is
Ralph McTell's, whose harmonica work is very graceful), and whose fiddle work is wild and rapturous, a counterpoint to the more contained, shaded styles of the others. It's a carefully arranged record, subdued overall.
Jansch himself is never flashy on the guitar (even when he ventures, unusually, onto electric), but he doesn't need to be -- he proved everything years ago. The man is class. ~ Chris Nickson
