Even the most ostensibly folky of contributors, the ones you’d expect to sound most like Drake, provide some wildly imaginative interpretations of his songs: Karine Polwart and Kris Drever’s Northern Sky becomes a tender duet, gaining a delicate shimmer and a soft blush of muted brass.

Icicle-melt slow with piano and violin gently building and building until, finally, a Bond-esque lushness blossoms. The tracks, each assigned a month almanac-style, tell stories about a young girl approaching adolescence, but everything is opaque with magic realist qualities.Dann knows about the enduring appeal of Drake better than most: “Every quarter I get a little royalty statement for my book. Yes, of course, there has to be sensitivity to what the original artist was trying to do but that does not necessarily mean similarity. Bombay Bicycle and The Staves combined the strengths of their original music, namely, playfulness and charming allure. I was astonished to find that, after absorbing all the fine details of Morton Jack’s book, I still viewed Drake largely as an enigma. It’s just trying to describe the life rather than trying to plumb the depths of his soul,” says Morton Jack, “which I always think is a bit of a fool’s errand.

We are honoured and so grateful to all our friends, old and new, who took part in the making of this beautiful set. Each track is an example of a fellow artist adopting Nick’s art as if it was their own, submitting to the song, and the results prove to me that talent can so often win out over mere skill or ‘personality’. Part of Drake’s appeal is the scarcity of information around him – a handful of photos, three albums with minimal outtakes, no known video footage. Initially I was worried that such an abundance of factual information – along the way we learn Drake’s London landline number and the name of the bloke who circumcised him – might ruin my own version of Nick. The post-punk band’s rendition is heavier, pushing loud guitars and thick bass lines to the surface where Drake originally coasted alongside softer instrumentals.

This takes the original and gently wraps it in the most exquisite material, taking the pre- Five Leaves Left demo and making it real. Parasite by east London’s Stick in the Wheel drags a bit, while Emeli Sandé’s One Of These Things First seems to have removed the song’s essential marrow completely. With artists like David Gray (who does “ Place To Be“), LEG (who performs “ From The Morning“), and Karine Polwart and Kris Drever (who does “ Northern Sky“; hear below), the collection is sure to be a rich trove of classic Nick Drake songs beautifully imagined by others. Nick Drake‘s discography proved to be a goldmine for the forthcoming album The Endless Coloured Ways, a collection of 32 of the musician’s most essential catalog entries reimagined by various artists.