Pink Moon (1972)

Pink Moon is the third and final studio album by the English musician Nick Drake, released in the UK by Island Records on 25 February 1972. It was the only one of Drake's studio albums to be released in North America during his lifetime. Pink Moon differs from Drake's previous albums in that it was recorded without a backing band, featuring just Drake on vocals and acoustic guitar, the only other instrumentation being a single piano melody overdubbed onto the title track.

Pink Moon, like Drake's previous studio albums, did not sell well during his lifetime, and its stripped-back, intimate sound received a mixed response from critics. However, the album has since garnered significant critical acclaim, retrospectively being named one of the greatest albums of the 1970s.

Background

Nick Drake's first two albums with Island Records, Five Leaves Left (1969) and Bryter Layter (1971), had sold poorly, and combined with Drake's reluctance to perform live or engage in album promotion, Island was not confident of another album from Drake. Additionally, Drake had isolated himself in his London apartment and was suffering from depression. In 1971, he saw a psychiatrist and was prescribed antidepressants, which he was reluctant to take due to the stigma associated with depression and his fears concerning the medication's interaction with marijuana, which he smoked regularly.

Although critics often associate Drake's music with his depression – especially the perceived melancholy of Pink Moon – Cally Callomon of Bryter Music, which manages Drake's estate, remembers it differently: "Nick was incapable of writing and recording while he was suffering from periods of depression. He was not depressed during the writing or recording of Pink Moon and was immensely proud of the album."

Recording

Drake appeared to have made a decision before recording his third album that it would be as plain as possible and free of the numerous guest musicians that had been employed on Bryter Layter. In his autobiography, Joe Boyd, producer of Drake's first two albums, remembered that as they were finishing the recording of Bryter Layter, Drake had told him that he wanted to make his next record alone. In his only interview, published in Sounds magazine in March 1971, Drake told interviewer Jerry Gilbert that "for the next [album] I had the idea of just doing something with John Wood, the engineer at Sound Techniques".

After a brief hiatus in Spain spent at a villa belonging to Island Records' head Chris Blackwell, Drake returned to London refreshed. In October 1971, he approached record engineer and producer John Wood, who had worked with Drake on his previous two albums and who Drake felt was one of the few people he could trust. Wood had worked with other artists such as Fairport Convention, Cat Stevens, and Pink Floyd, and had engineered Drake's first two albums. Although Wood primarily focused on the engineering of an album, he often contributed as a producer.

When Drake reached out to Wood in 1971 expressing his interest in recording another album, the ensuing process was significantly pared down compared to Drake's other two albums. The album was recorded at Sound Techniques studio in London on 30–31 October 1971 with just Drake and Wood present. With the studio being booked during the day, Drake and Wood arrived at the studio around 11:00 p.m. and simply and quietly recorded half the songs. The next night, they did the same.