John Martyn
Inside Out

Take Astral Weeks by Van Morrison, or rather take the most touching period of Tim Buckley, when he blended folk and jazz in unreachable works like Lorca, Starsailor, and even Happy Sad; everything that is divine in these recordings, all those notes that become soul, you will find here as well. Drenched in alcohol, full of memories and tears, but you'll find them here too.

John Martyn above all is a master in the use of the voice, he molds it, uses it almost as an instrument, in some cases it sounds like a baritone sax (take for example the bewitching opening Fine Lines), and thanks to it and to some fantastic musicians (Danny Thompson from Pentangle, Steve Winwood, and Chris Wood from Traffic to name a few), he creates a liquid tapestry in which he smoothly transitions from perfect folk songs to free jazz improvisations without ever coming across as pretentious; instead, the music can be followed calmly because it has an incredible spontaneity... one is not surprised until the end of the album, when with a clear mind you wonder how writing that is neither predictable nor simple can feel so natural and sweet.
The Scotsman, even from his early works dating back to 1968 (especially The Tumbler) had begun to dilute his Dylan-like writing with jazz digressions, but it is in this work that he reaches the zenith of his artistic production (art that will logically be highly praised much later, but absolutely not considered at the time of its release).

Listen, for example, to Look In, the opening track of the second side, where his guitar dictates the writing, a sort of liquid funk, an immense testament of class sung with incredible strength but at the same time extremely delicately, or the following Beverly, a spine-chilling instrumental that evokes only imagined paradises, or even Outside In, a sort of his freeform freakout (with all due respect to Mayo Thompson of the Red Crayola, but here the class is on another level...), a pivotal moment of the album, everything exhibits absolute cohesion, inspiration from who knows which galaxy, and always and above all that voice, or rather those thousand voices, that cradle even by just whispering vowels.

Ahhh, let yourself be enveloped by the melancholic embrace of Ways to Cry and pretend to be in love while listening to the almost soul of So Much In Love With You, pretend to have understood everything John wants to convey and feel compelled to listen to the album again from the beginning because as soon as the needle lifts, you already sense the magic slipping through your fingers, a sense of void that was once a calm sea, and no, you never have enough of this sea... you dive back in with a smile, trying to hold your breath as long as possible to immerse yourself deeper and discover, who knows, which secrets dear to you.

Immersed in the seventies, a musically revolutionary decade like no other (although perhaps... on closer inspection all decades have had revolutions, their exposure made the difference), a masterpiece above ideas and ideals.