Each chapter is quite different to the last but takes its place as a subtle movement in a much larger body of work. Not least because this is music which retains a magical quality, in spite of its maker’s recent insistence on stressing the nuts and bolts. Here Van and he come to a kind of compromise – Van seems ok with that idea, as long as it’s acknowledged that there was always a structure to the music, that it didn’t magically appear.Īs you read in the following pages – updated to include an appraisal of Van’s recent surge of prolific creativity – and relisten to his albums, it’s worth bearing that insistence in mind. Fake news.” Courteously, but clearly unwilling to be the person that allows Morrison to flatly deny his own genius and undermine the legend of his sylvan and free-flowing 1970s classics, David quietly insists that all things considered, there must have been some kind of genius at work. “That’s rubbish, for a start,” he tells David Cavanagh in 2017. Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks stands as an ethereal masterpiece that transcends the boundaries of traditional music. In Uncut’s two most recent encounters with Van, the issue is raised of the manner in which the composer is able to guide his musicians across gradually unfolding compositions which arrive at transcendent heights, with seemingly little direction. As you’ll read in this deluxe Ultimate Music Guide, in which we match up in-depth reviews of Van’s extensive catalogue with a series of lively – sometimes to the point of challenging – archive interviews from throughout his career, this can often take some slightly bizarre turns.

Van morrison interview astral weeks