Nick Drake
Made to Love Magic (Reissue)
Island/UMe

Judging from oddballs like Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom, eccentric English folk seems to be a new American indie-rock fetish. Guru of melancholy Nick Drake was certainly an eccentric English folkie, but a bummed-out one; his gorgeous music was more sepulchral than whimsical. Dead at 26 from an overdose of antidepressants, he left behind three completed albums, all essential, plus a bunch of worthy loose ends. This set rehashes some of the latter, along with a newly discovered finale, "Tow the Line," which finds Drake standing on the brink, waiting for directions that he never got.