Pitchfork

According to Island Records, a new collection of Nick Drake songs, entitled Made to Love Magic, will be available May 24th, and is set to feature the recently discovered and previously unreleased song, "Tow the Line". The song, found hidden at the end of a 1974 studio session tape, reportedly displays a characteristically calm, yet moderately confident side of the 26-year-old Drake, who would pass away later that year from an overdose of anti-depressant medication.

Originally discovered by the members of Fairport Convention at a English folk festival in the late 60s, Drake signed to Island Records in 1968, subsequently releasing three masterpiece albums of tasteful folk-- Five Leaves Left, Bryter Layter and Pink Moon-- between 1969-1972. His short life was marked by battles with stage fright and melancholia, including at least one several-week-long stint of hospitalization for extreme clinical depression, leading some to speculate that his premature death was the result of a suicide. Drake's family and friends, however, have long refuted this suggestion.

Though not fully embraced by critics or a cult following until a few years after his death, Drake was arguably the best (by far) of the British folkies, tempering an edgy lyrical stinginess with a near-holy feel for melody, while forging a Donovan-smooth voice. Original engineer John Wood and Drake's first arranger, Robert Kirby, contribute mightily to Made to Love Magic, bringing forth a full disc's worth of freshly remastered rarities that would've fit rather comfortably inside the 1986 Fruit Tree box set.

Described as a realistic "companion piece" to Drake's trio of proper releases, this new collection spans the songwriter's brief career. The new versions of "River Man" and "Mayfair" were originally recorded on Kirby's home tape recorder in 1968 while he and Drake were colleagues at Cambridge. And John Wood's remixes of "Black Eyed Dog", "Rider on the Wheel" and "Voices", will now be available for the first time in stereo, along with remasters of two other 1974 tracks, "Hanging on a Star" and the aformentioned "Tow the Line." Tracklist:

01 Rider on the Wheel
02 Magic
03 River Man
04 Joey
05 Thoughts of Mary Jane
06 Mayfair
07 Hanging on a Star
08 Three Hours
09 Clothes of Sand
10 Voices
11 Time of No Reply
12 Black Eyed Dog
13 Tow the Line