richard youngs: beyond the valley of ultrahits (sonic oyster)
last time i saw richard youngs he was klanging and fizzing his way freely through some moaning wailing noise set with heather leigh murray. so it comes as well nothing of a surprise (given his fondness for genre bending switchery) to find him indulging his pop whims. and it comes as nothing of a surprise neither to find it’s a giddy bloody delight of an album.
youngs is one of these fellas who annoyingly have that alchemic touch where everything they touch turns to musical gold. be it that flying nun style lofi, or the wyrd folk, or the progasmic flourishes of ilk, or the improv and electronic. all with that kind of peculiar english eccentricity. no matter what he’s turned his hand to it is almost certainly worth a listen.
if this is the result of a dare (and jeebus bless whoever put him up to it) and even though it’s uber-limited, there’s nothing throwaway about this bugger. seems to be as much effort went into this as anything he’s put out on jagjaguwar.
it’s pop. for sure. not in the way leona lewis or coldplay or green day is. but in the way bjork or brian wilson or the zombies are. there’s nothing of the shiny machine quality, ultracompressed spew, radio playlists aurally rape you with. it’s an odd combination of bowies acidic quirk (on summer void, or is that just me…) and robert wyatt and fairport convention folk-rockerry and gorgeous beach boys overdubbed harmony.
musically minimal for sure. featuring as it does bits of keyboard and drum (machine mainly i think) and fuzzed up six string. but the vocals. man the vocals. fucking gorgeous. gorgeous. almost but not quite skewed melodies trickling down yr ear cavities like a honey-dripping tongue. warm and boisterous and by god wonderfully listenable.
and despite the verse chorus verse functionality of it all it still sounds spontaneously floaty and free. it’s all gay disco and church hymnal and pastoral muttering. it’s strangely wistful and occasionally melancholic but as a rule glorious sunny. as of this mucky earth as it is the blueblue sky. it’s all and none of these things. wonderful stuff.
limited to a hundred hand numbered copies. thought at a guess they’re probably all gonegonegone by now.
