Van The Man’s greatest record brings together all of his vast strengths into a single document resplendent with humor, pain, longing and passionate celebration of humanity and nature. From the gorgeous jazz inflected opener “Fair Play” until the dark, and ruminative folk of the tense closing track “Country Fair”, the artist hits nary a false note, one sublime moment following next in a an almost painfully moving tapestry. Veedon Fleece is Astral Weeks’ older, wiser cousin — still embroidering deep Celtic mystery over the anxiety of modern life, but more mature, more lived in, and ultimately sadder and more affecting. For all of Morrison’s “copycats” no artist could ever replicate this music of idiosyncratic transcendence.