Richard Youngs
May

London. Victoria Station. About 2 years ago. I was wandering like a modern-day flâneur in one of those mega-stores, which to call a newsstand would indeed be too reductive, where in addition to newspapers and magazines of all kinds, you can find everything from chocolate bars, chips, to spirits... to sanitary pads, also of every kind and size. My attention, needless to say, falls on the music magazine section, and more particularly on the magazine “Wire.”
On the cover, Richard Youngs. Who is he?
I flip, look, read... since I was about to embark on a long flight home, I decide it's worth buying the magazine. I discover that Richard Youngs is a Scottish guitarist, but he also plays many other instruments, and is an icon of avant-folk who enjoys experimenting with electronics, has been making records since the early '90s, always in constant search and movement and teetering between a certain minimalist avant-garde experimentalism and a clearly folk-progressive inspired approach, but he also indulges in daring collaborations like the one with the guitarist of “Acid Mothers Temple”, Makoto Kawabata, or with the godfather of avant-folk, the mad Jandek.
Music to my ears.

Back home, I get hold of this “May”, released in 2002 by Jagjaguwar, and I am literally blown away. Certainly, compared to Youngs' early works (which I immediately went on to find..), more experimental and sometimes extreme and really too indebted to the pioneers of minimalism, this is one of the more accessible and listenable. The album is imbued with the spirits of masters of overseas folk like John Martyn, Bert Jansch, and Nick Drake, but also strongly indebted to the experimentalism of a Robert Wyatt or Current 94 and the guitar technique of John Fahey.
The melodies are simple, essential, sparse, fluid, and hypnotic, of rare sweetness and incomparable sensitivity, just like Richard’s lyrics and voice which in this album, even more than in others, seem to be redeemed and liberated.
We start with “Neon Winter”, 7 minutes and 30, and it's as if the late Derek Bailey met the most hallucinated and delirious Wyatt. “Trees That Fall” and “Wynd Time Wynd” are little folk gems, as well as examples of Richard's great compositional abilities. The peak, however, is reached with “Gildings”, worthy of the most inspired Martyn, a ballad of rare beauty and intensity. The album as a whole is a clear example of how simplicity is the true greatness, and how sometimes there's no need for grand arrangements, monumental post-production work, or elaborate embellishments around an album... it just takes someone who knows how to touch and make the right strings resonate.
Enjoy listening.