55. Richard Youngs - The Naive Shaman (2005)

Richard Youngs has been a constant presence on the UK DIY underground since the early 90's, despite having stayed well below the radar of all but the most committed of exploratory listeners. This album from 2005, provided a way into Youngs world, being readily available on Jagjaguwar records, accessible, beautiful, and coming at a time when people were kinda interested in this stuff.

Youngs comes from Cambridge but has based himself in Glasgow since the release of Advent in 1990. His music embraces improvisation, psychedelics, folk, prog, electonica and pop, and he often cites Pink Floyd or traditional folk as influences. Also mentioned are artists as disparate as Pet Shop Boys, New Order, Pastels and Galaxie 500, along with the improvisers and noise makers within the UK underground circle who often also share a background in traditional prog and pop.

I often think of Youngs as a UK Arthur Russell, eshewing the spotlight with his zen like aura, existing to create music as elemental as stone or water, striving to provide a effect similar to sitting by a waterfall or looking at a rainbow. Youngs often improvises lyrics, choosing lines and words not for their meaning, but for their sound when repeated, or their double meaning, or their oneatopoeic effect.

There are literally hundreds of RY records/tapes/cd-r's, many collaborations, many tiny editions on his own No Fans records, Jagjaguwar release mainly solo discs.

The Naive Shaman came at a time when the popularity of the new weird America was at the peak, so that UK heads looking for a British equivalent to Sunburnt, Wolf Eyes, MV & EE, Acid Mothers etc.. had their ready made equivalent who had in fact been doing stuff similar in DIY attitude for yonks, and had been a major influence on all the US stuff, in approach and sound.

This album then was and is a perfect entry point into Youngs world, containing 5 tracks over 30+ mins, and not a wasted second. Life on a Beam starts with a typical Youngs trope of mantric chanting and overlayed vocals, words chosen for how they sound sung out loud, 'on a beam, on a beam, on a beam'. Illuminating Land then follows, a hushed, static piece of electronic burbles and guitar twangs building tension. Sonar in my Soul is 10mins of a hypnotic spacemen 3ish loop made of bass and a dripping noise, Youngs choosing his lines well, 'ocean on a roll', 'spectre of sunrise', 'I am the spier' singing in a high tenor, some Fripp like guitar shredding notches up the immersion factor at the end. Once it was Autumn, has Youngs looping his elemental mantras as effectively as any electronic processor. Finally, Summers Edge II is 16mins of beauteous bloops and clonks with Alex Neilssons free percussion rattling away, whilst Youngs mantras are carved into the sound reminding listeners that this music is all about that voice as an instrument sounding like hedgerows, hills, nooks and gorges, and as the musics becomes more cacophonous and cluttered nothing is able to break Youngs out of his reverie, and he sings on unflustered, like a monolith, beaten by a storm.