Cult albums: COLOUR GREEN by Sibylle Baier

Colour Green is a very deceptive title. After all, there is nothing especially 'green' about this album, whether we are talking about the sepia-imbued cover or the actual musical content. And yet the more I think about it, the more sense it makes. First, the colour in question invokes the cover of Nick Drake's classic debut Five Leaves Left from 1969 (which was surely an inspiration for Colour Green). Second, it creates a certain out-of-sync and out-of-time feeling that is further backed up by the story behind this album's release.

Sibylle Baier is a German folk singer and actress, and yet it is quite hard to say either of those things with full confidence. After all, she recorded but one album, and her only acting credit is a minor appearance in Wim Wenders's Alice In The Cities (1973). Colour Green was recorded in her home in Germany between 1970 and 1973 but remained unknown and unreleased until 30 years later when her son compiled the scattered recordings on a CD and gave it to J Mascis of the American alternative band Dinosaur Jr. J Mascis was so impressed that he passed the songs to the Orange Twin Records label who promptly released them in 2006. Since then, the album has achieved a legendary status and a cult following. 

It is a great story, of course, but it wouldn't be nearly as interesting if the music wasn't special. After all, we have heard enough cult albums where the context overshadows the actual music. Colour Green is not one of those albums. Instead, it is a self-contained world of pastoral elegance and melodic brilliance that is sustained all through its brief, but magical, 33 minutes. Colour Green is a world unto itself.

In a nutshell, Colour Green is a haunting guitar-based folk album. It is mostly made up of short ballad-like vignettes which are both evocative and disarmingly beautiful. The material is very even. "Tonight" is the album's most famous tune, but that is perhaps because it comes first. After all, songs like "Remember the Day" and "Forget About" (possibly the most achingly gorgeous thing ever written) are hardly any worse. There is very little variation on the album, although one could argue that "Softly" is almost upbeat and "Wim" is almost playful. Oh and the closing "Give Me a Smile" features an orchestrated string section and an electronic organ (apparently Baier plays a steel-string guitar here instead of a nylon-strung one). 

I don't remember who it was who said that February is a Tuesday of the year. Ever since I first heard this album ten or fifteen years ago, I've always felt this was a perfect Tuesday album. "Tonight, as I get back from work...". There is a certain wistfulness to Colour Green, a certain melancholy, but once in a while you encounter beauty that transcends sadness, and gives hope. Colour Green is precisely that.