From the Vaults Friday Scott Walker Tilt 1995

The Year: 1995
The Album: Scott Walker, Tilt
Who it Influenced: Antony and the Johnsons, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Swans, Tindersticks, Richard Hawley

When Scott Walker arose from out of nowhere with 1995's Tilt, it was a return from the wilderness; one of popular music's great, mysterious, mystical recluses returning after a decade dwelling in the shadows.

1984's Climate of Hunter had pointed Walker's way towards the darkness, but Tilt was the album that first lured listeners there, too; eventually pointing the way towards 2006's horrific The Drift.

Tilt was the place where the old Scott Walker —the pop pin-up with the booming baritone and movie-star looks— went to do; the ghostly, ghastly avant-garde wasteland that found his balladeer's croon shorn of its bombast, torn from its spotlight. Here, his voice sounds like a terrified sob, and all the grandstanding backing —woodwinds, church organ, symphony orchestra— sounds like tiny, half-implied sketches on the edge of a howling nothingness.

• Full review: Scott Walker, Tilt