GARRIE Nick : 49 Arlington Gardens

FOLK-SONGWRITING, SIXTIES

“49 Arlington Gardens” is the album that musical history uses to pay its dues to Nick Garrie. There are many reasons for it to be so. The marvelous recording sessions in Scotland, sponsored by Ally Kerr and that included such great names as Norman Blake (TEENAGE FANCLUB), Francis McDonald (NICE MAN, TEENAGE FANCLUB, BMX BANDITS), Duglas T. Stewart (BMX BANDITS) producing, and Duncan Cameron (DELGADOS, TRAVIS, TRASHCAN SINATRAS) as sound engineer, with the still less famous DOGHOUSE ROSES, Spain’s Sandra Belda Martínez (CALIFORNIA SNOW STORY, SUPERÉTÉ), Rachel Allison, Iona McDonald and many other musicians from the Scottish indie pop scene. An astonishing collection of great compositions, with gems like “Twilight,” “Le pont Mirabeau,” “When Evening Comes” and “When the Child in You,” and a deeply romantic song like “Lovers,” written with Francis Lai (responsible for such historic soundtracks as “A Man and A Woman” and “Love Story”). The fact that “The Nightmare of J.B. Stanislas,” the cursed disc released in 1969 that barely saw the light of day and that today has become a collector’s item, is receiving this small moment of glory that it was robbed of by chance when it was first released.. And above all, a singer-songwriter, Nick Garrie, with a precious voice full of solemnity and a classic pop feeling, in the best sense of the word, enjoying a moment of brilliant inspiration.

It’s one of those discs that sees the light of day thanks to the support of a new generation of musicians, admirers of the British singer-songwriter. It’s an honest, intimate, elegant, precocious disc that maintains a marvelous balance between arrangements and melodies. Just under thirty minutes of dreamy compositions, of pop and tight folk that deals humbly and candidly with human nature with the surprising element of juvenile fantasy that is “The Clockmaker".