Richard Youngs
River Through Howling Sky

Spare, skeletal, essential, present, touching.

In a few adjectives, this is "River Through The Howling Sky". It's a cathartic Youngs, almost in a trance, aided only by essential percussion, a carpet of low frequencies, and a sick guitar drowned in slight distortions. Never a chord, single notes, shredded and scratched strings ("Fountain of Light"). Among all this fog, it's possible to occasionally perceive crystalline acoustic sounds, almost marking an imaginary metronome, almost reminding us that there, millions of years ago, there was the Blues ("Blossom"). Vocally, Richard recalls a Mark Hollis caressed by the spirit of Eden, a prayer that could transform into a song, if it weren't immersed in so much torpor. It brings us back to the cosmic German masters ("Sky Is Upon You"), if it weren't for those desperate strings. Then suddenly, finally a cadence, a narcoleptic pink fluid, or maybe Jason Molina in his ghostly tropic who, staring at the sky, witnesses the brutal rift that the black blade (guitar) of the samurai Keiji Haino causes him ("Red Cloud Singular")…

I'm just daydreaming, cradled in the arms of this river that crosses the howling sky…

For this alone, for this dream, I sincerely thank Richard Youngs.