Wednesday, May 9, 2007

Richard Youngs-Advent,LP,1990,UK

Richard Youngs is a reclusive musician from Scotland whose work was devoted for a long time to "lo-fi" improvisations inspired by minimalism and John Fahey's instrumental folk music. His first album, Advent (1988 - Table Of The Elements, 1998 - Jagjaguwar, 2004), contains three lengthy spectral improvisations for piano, guitar, oboe and voice. The noisy guitar makes the difference: it sounds as if Terry Riley had been locked up in a madhouse. A prolific collaboration with Simon Wickham-Smith began on the four lengthy jams of Lake (1990 - VHF, 1997). Ceaucescu (Forced Exposure, 1992) is perhaps the most accomplished of the series: chaotically orchestrated for dulcimer, keyboards, guitars, psychedelia and cacophony, it exudes an almost religious feeling out of the hyper-psychedelic cacophony. In their quirky musical excursions the duo manage to fuse the majestic and the amateurish (I Live In A Big City, Goat, At Home). Kretinmuzak (Slask, 1994) adds one more epic-length work, The Proof Of The Point, and Asthma And Diabetes (Forced Exposure, 1994) contains two more. Next came the single Worried About Heaven (Fourth Dimension, 1994) and the EP 444d (Fourth Dimension, 1995). Enedkeg (Majora, 1996) indulges in otherworldly drones and adds another lengthy dissonant piece to the canon, More Urban Music for the Middle Of Nowhere. The live improvisations of Knish (Ignivomous, 1996), Veil (Insignificant, 1997), a series of childish experiments with sampler, rhythm machine and synthesizer, and Red And Blue Bear (Insignificant, 1997), with more electronics and less structure, were minor works. Finally, Pulse Of The Rooster (VHF, 1998) was, instead, a simpler work, basically psychedelic pop for late hippies (Shanti Deva).
New Angloid Sound (Forced Exposure, 1993) contains covers of traditional folk music performed on guitar and kazoo.
Other collaborations include Durian Durian (Forced Exposure, 1993) with Neil Campbell, Simon Wickham-Smith and Stewart Walden (each artist created his own music independently, and later Youngs mixed them together), Radios (Freek, 1996) and Radios 2 (Freek, 1996) with Brian Lavelle, Site / Realm (VHF, 1995) and Relayer (2002) with Skullflower's guitarist Matthew Bower, and Ilk's Zenith (1998) with a poet.
Festival (Table Of The Elements, 1996) was only his third solo album and contained compositions for one-man band. Youngs tried to turn the elements of his lengthy improvisations with Wickham-Smith into full-fledged but shorter and structured songs. The result was a hodgepodge of amateurish imitations of psychedelic music.
Georgians (VHF, 1996) is a collaboration with Stephen Todd. Most of the tracks sound like brief experiments. Even the two longer tracks sound more like ideas than like music (Sixteen 00 is merely repetition for the sake of repetition).
House Music (Meme, 1997) returns to Festival's music for lo-fi home-made instruments and found noises, and ranks among his best works.
A new artist emerged at the end of the decade, an artist whose roots were in the folk-singer tradition of the 1970s, not in the minimalists of the 1960s. The three lengthy compositions on Sapphie (1998, Jagjaguwar, 2000) are slow and tender "ballads" for voice and guitar, that owe much more to folk than to avantgarde music (Soon It Will Be Fire, A Fullness Of Light In Your Soul, The Graze Of Days).
Making Paper (Jagjaguwar, 2000) is a recital of plaintive piano-based lieder that sound like Nick Drake dirges or Incredible String Band lullabies dilated via Robert Wyatt's Rock Bottom. The 19-minute psalm Warriors is hyper-slocore: the voice unfolds the melody at a very slow pace, while the hand occasionally hits the keyboard of the piano. Silence prevails over music. The 22-minute Only Halogonian is dominated by a quiet, endless-looping neoclassical piano carillon, slowly interlaced with Young's liturgical singing.
Youngs also recorded an album of duets with Kawabata Makoto (VHF, 2001), a collaboration with the Vibracathedral Orchestra's Neil Campbell, How The Garden Is (Harpendedn, 2001) and an album with Sunroof and Vibracathedral Orchestra, Freak On (VHF, 2001).
The "Radios" series with Brian Lavelle (basically, free-form noise) has continued over the years with Radios 3-4-5 (Freek, 1997) and Radios 6-7-8 (Bake, 2001).
The harsh, post-industrial Metallic Sonatas (VHF, 1999) and LAmmERGEIER (VHF, 2001) are new collaborations with Simon Wickham-Smith that open new "metallic" avenues for their improvisation.
May (Jagjaguar, 2002), humbly arranged for acoustic guitar and voice, sounds like a continuation of Sapphie, but without the same focus and intensity.
Youngs also recorded four untitled duets with Acid Mothers Temple's leader Makoto Kawabata, released on an untitled album (VHF, 2002).
Airs of the Ear (Jagjaguwar, 2003) runs the gamut from the evocative and philosophical Life on the Stream to the sinister and discordant Fire Horse Rising, while radiating ecstasy (Oh My Stars), romance (Halifax Amore) and fear (Machaut's Dream). Youngs has entered a more personal and musical phase of his life/career. He now composes real songs that aim at delivering real meaning, rather than abstract soundpainting aimed at shocking the listener.
Ourselves (VHF, 2004) and Partrick Rain Dance (VHF, 2005) document performances with percussionist Alexander Neilson, that include both covers and acid jams. in particular the 16-minute Music Of The Last Sun,
River Through Howling Sky (Jagjaguar, 2004) marks further progress towards simplicity and the inner world, although the lugubrious 24-minute blues Red Cloud Singular sounds a bit self-indulgent (six of those minutes would have been enough).
The Ilk project was revived by Canticle (2005).
The Naive Shaman (Jagjaguwar, 2005)
5 Years (VHF, 2006) collects material composed during five years with Wickham-Smith. from:http://www.scaruffi.com/vol6/youngs.html#title

get it here

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jeez, that might be one of the worst band overviews I've ever read. Maybe Pierro Scaruffi should try composing real bios that aim at delivering real meaning, or something equally meaningless. That said, thanks for putting this up: I've been looking for a copy for a while.

Anonymous said...

great masterpiece!
Poseur

Anonymous said...

Yes, great album -- a masterpiece even. Though the CD and LP reissues of Advent are available from Young's US label Jagjaguwar.

Anonymous said...

now we're talking... thanks very much! i still don't know how people could criticize anything you put up, but, whatever. just please don't stop.

Anonymous said...

yeah, a little shady. this is definitely still in print...

Anonymous said...

Please stop this fucking shit. Let musicians make a buck. Who the fuck are YOU to interfere?

Anonymous said...

let poor musicians listen.