Track Listing

1. Joey
2. Clothes Of Sand
3. May Fair
4. I Was Made To Love Magic
5. Strange Meetings II
6. Been Smoking Too Long

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #98171 in Music
• Released on: 1989-05-01
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
Nick Drake died in 1974, but the cult surrounding him and the three albums released during his lifetime (Five Leaves Left, Bryter Layter, Pink Moon), keeps on growing. The only posthumous album so far to include previously unreleased material,Time Of No Reply, acts as a useful coda to the fragile charms of Nick Drake. The 14 tracks include some of Nick's home recordings ("Fly", "Mayfair", "Strange Meeting II") as well as alternative takes of songs he later re-cut ("Man In A Shed", "Thoughts Of Mary Jane"). Most illuminating, though, are the four final tracks that Nick recorded right at the end of his life. "Rider On The Wheel" is among the most attractive of his melodies, but it is the chilling "Black Eyed Dog"--a haunted English blues-style song and the despairing "Hanging On A Star" which are the most striking. Within a year, Nick Drake was dead. But for once, the cliché rings true, and the music really does live on. --Patrick Humphries

Customer Reviews

Anguish and tenderness
My favourite tracks on this posthumous compilation include the title track, I Was Made To Love Magic with its elegant orchestra and the heart-wrenching Fly as his most achingly beautiful song (although I prefer the version on Bryter Layter). For obvious reasons, it calls to mind another melancholy masterpiece, the song Firefly by American Music Club.

This graceful take of The Thoughts Of Mary Jane is embellished by Richard Thompson's electric guitar, but the album's real classic is Black Eyed Dog, a chilling listening experience. It's like a momento mori, the most magical dance of anguish between his voice and the guitar.

Covered by World of Skin on their Ten Songs for Another World album, that version is now available on Swans' Various Failures 1988 - 1992 compilation in all its blood-curdling glory. Overall, Time Of No Reply is a great album, but I prefer Bryter Layter and Five Leaves Left where more instruments create a denser sound. Still, one cannot have too much of Drake's enchanting music.

oh, Sandy Gray........
This version of 'Fly' recorded at his home in 1969 is among his best- the edgy vocal and perfect, intricate guitar part make this much more affecting than the Bryter Layter version. The other early demos are very listenable, but I find the versions of 'Man in a Shed' and 'Thoughts of Mary Jane' slightly irritating.

'Rider on the Wheel' - flowing guitar piece with simple, bewitching lyrics - my favourite Drake song. The guitar is so deceptive, made to sound so easy....but just try working it out!
'Black Eyed Dog' - unsettling; not exactly Ode To Joy either. ps tuning GGDGBD
'Hanging on a Star' - a bitter outcry at the music industry...the guitar sounds so much like a piano, it is incredible!
'Voice From The Mountain' - probably his most depressing song!

Buy it if you like Pink Moon.

why Nick still means something
"Time of no reply" is the dream of the elusive lost album made real. On this album I believe is to be found Nick Drake at his purest and most direct. Lacking as it does for the most part the strings, flutes, and other peripherals of for example "bryter later", "Time of no reply" has an uncluttered and persistant clarity. This is perhaps at its most evident in the haunting "Black-eyed dog" in which the harmonics, which alternate with the verse lines seem to hang in a space which is not confined to the bare mechanics of sound. It is this communication of mood, sensation and spirit that is at the heart of Nick Drakes music and it is for this reason that few people having experienced it remain unmoved.