Yes, mes amis, “Astral Weeks” is finally making a return to vinyl courtesy of Warner/RTI reissue series. An album nonpareil in rock music, it ranks as high in the pantheon of greatest ever albums such as Pepper and Pet Sounds. Indeed Van the Man would never record anything quite like this astonishing aural work. In some ways, he reached his pinnacle at the beginning of his career! It is an album steeped in primal influences of folk, blues and jazz, whimsical and free-flowing, perfect for the hippie period, but yet so contemporary today, indeed timeless.
Van offers us glimpses of his home city, tree lined avenues and labyrinthine back streets, a heartfelt cry for his lost youth. It was almost ignored on release, slipping out under the pop/rock radar; slowly but surely, however, people began to talk about it, write about it and eventually worship it. This is a young Irishman recording with a bunch of veteran jazz players and getting them to understand his vision and stretching them until they forged this brave new music.
The opening track - and title track – flows and glides across your consciousness. “Sweet Thing” is simply gorgeous, delightful and addictive. The first of the album’s celebrated tracks is the enigmatic “Cypress Avenue”, a stream of consciousness piece driven along by prominent acoustic bass and chattering harpsichord. One of Van’s great lines here “conquered in a car seat.” The climax of this song is without doubt one of the finest moments in music, as wailing violins add to the agony and ecstasy.
The second masterpiece is “Madame George”, full of dark anguish that emerges above the surface of the sonic beauty to be heard here. Who can forget the “clicking/clacking of the high heel shoe” once heard! Who cannot be moved by the lengthy coda, “say goodbye, goodbye, goodbye” carried out of eventual earshot by sweeping strings, strummed guitars and percussion? Immediately following this brooding work is the winsome “Ballerina” full of Morrison vocal gymnastics, slurring and spreading his pronunciation to stunning effect.
The listener feels like an observer of the author’s intimate moments of enlightenment and discovery, the words becoming almost instruments in themselves, as Van murmurs, stammers and endlessly repeats, almost teasing out the full word or syllable. This is an album of dark anguish disguised in the most beautiful of songs. An astonishing album, never repeated in popular music and perhaps the greatest album ever?..................
Also coming out under the same banner is Van’s “His Band and Street Choir”, the follow up to “Moondance”, an album perhaps lacking in the mysticism of its predecessors, but full of top songs, with punchy arrangements and muscular singing, perhaps Van’s adieu to rhythm and blues? It contains one of his greatest performances in “Domino”, and is another must-have Van Morrison album.
Yes, mes amis, “Astral Weeks” is finally making a return to vinyl courtesy of Warner/RTI reissue series. An album nonpareil in rock music, it ranks as high in the pantheon of greatest ever albums such as Pepper and Pet Sounds. Indeed Van the Man would never record anything quite like this astonishing aural work. In some ways, he reached his pinnacle at the beginning of his career! It is an album steeped in primal influences of folk, blues and jazz, whimsical and free-flowing, perfect for the hippie period, but yet so contemporary today, indeed timeless. 
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