I've never really been a Jeff Buckley fanboy - for me, Grace was a good album which contained a handful of great songs, and Sketches was an eminently listenable collection of odds and sorts which contained at least one great song (although somehow both records carry a lot of emotional freight for me, dating back to the more tumultuous times of a few years ago), and that was where it ended. While I like Jeff Buckley, I've never felt that he particularly spoke to or for me, or that his music or talent was in any sense transcendent (barring "Everybody Here Wants You", which I think is absolutely amazing, and his best song), and I haven't made any effort to track down the rest of his (mostly if not entirely posthumously released) recorded output.
Still, when I came across Songs To No One (which I hadn't previously heard of), I thought that it'd probably be worth the $5 asking price and brought it home. The record's a document of some of Buckley's pre-Grace collaborations with Gary Lucas, and contains early versions of "Mojo Pin" and "Grace" as well as a handful of other cuts from tapes, demos and live performances. It runs the gamut from harder rocking numbers like "Malign Fiesta (No Soul)" to the more ruminative, spectral end of Buckley's repertoire (best represented by the drifty, 11 and a half minute opener, "Hymne à l'Amour"), and it's a pleasant listen, though not particularly riveting for a casual fan like myself.
