Van Morrison - No Guru, No Method, No Teacher (1986)

If Inarticulate Speech Of The Heart was a bit synth-heavy for some Van Morrison fans in the 80s, they needn't have feared - by 1986 he had fully returned to a more natural sound, and released one of the greatest albums of his career.

Morrison's lyrical preoccupations were more grounded too - after spending the early part of the decade looking into theosophy and the burgeoning New Age (especially Anglo-American writer Alice Bailey), the title of this album could be read as a statement of intent.  With Ray Charles named as one of his earliest sources of rapture within the opening lines, No Guru is an album that primarily looks back, but still finds spiritual wonder everywhere.

Musically, it's a largely relaxed and meditative listen, only breaking a sweat a couple of times, and the closing Ivory Tower is the only decisively upbeat track.  Elsewhere, six out of ten tracks break the five-minute barrier (nothing approaches Common One status, though!) as the extended meditations on love, nature and art take jazzy and folky forms.  Some reviewers have even posited No Guru as an 80s sequel to Astral Weeks, and if you listen to Tir Na Nog, or the "gardens wet with rain" callbacks on In The Garden, you can see their point.  A massively underrated career highlight from a singular artist.

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Previously posted at SGTG:
Saint Dominic's Preview
Common One
Inarticulate Speech Of The Heart