Richard Youngs - May
(Jagjaguwar)
Scotland's Richard Youngs creates beautiful songs from the barest minimalism. His songs can have all the depth and shimmering beauty of a densely layered and meticulously constructed tonal collage, with the use of only a handful of notes, and sometimes even less instrumentation.
His latest, May, is a reflection on a peaceful spring. "Bloom of All" cycles around a repeating phrase in Youngs' trademark style. "Trees That Fall" is a surprisingly full and lush folk song. Fingerpicking his way through imagery of dreams, the sky and imagination, Richard is deep enough into straight ahead folk songwriting that he can't turn back just yet. "Wynding Hills of Maine" is slightly more meditative and has a much better melody. Richard succeeds in holding his own while wandering similar paths Nick Drake forged decades before. The momentum carries on into "Gilding" which has a touch of Aerial M or Pullman, with a hint of Alan Sparhawk's vocals.
Sadly, the album ends the same way it begins: with a weak and annoying song. Occasionally the songs do suffer from Youngs' repetition and strange song structures, but on May the good songs far outnumber (and outweigh) the bad.
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