English musician
Richard Youngs (born 29 May 1966) is an English musician based in Glasgow since the early 1990s. His catalogue of solo and collaborative work formally begins with "Advent", first issued in 1990. He plays many instruments, most commonly choosing the guitar, but he has been known to use other instruments including the shakuhachi, accordion, theremin, dulcimer, a home-made synthesizer (common on early recordings) and even a motorway bridge. He also released an album which was entirely "a cappella".
For many years, live performances were very occasional and almost always in Glasgow; he has stated publicly that he finds live performance "incredibly nerve-racking: stomach cramps, tension headaches...". However, in recent years, he has performed more regularly (including a tour of New Zealand in 2010 and a UK tour in support of Damon and Naomi in 2011) and many of his recent shows have been predominantly vocal - he told The Wire ("issue 284") "I went to a laptop concert and decided I was going to sing".
Style.
His music has been noted for its diversity, with Dusted saying that he had been "defying strict genre classifications since the early nineties, swapping labels, styles, partners, motifs, and recording techniques as the desire has struck him". He has been recording for most of his life, telling Foxy Digitalis that "I've made music as long as I can remember - ever since I was a child - and recorded the stuff as long as I've had the technology - I began with a cheap cassette player. So, it's strange to think what it'd be like not to make or record music. It seems unnatural!". When reviewing his 1996 CD "Festival", Melody Maker described him as "grand-meister of contemporary British improv, spiritual son of Eddie Prevost and Maddy Prior; gentle manipulator of English hymn-notics and religious incantations; protege, challenger and radicaliser of folk, blues, rock, minimalism and improvisation; translator for the sea and the rain and the sky; ambassador to war and peace, to love and anguish".
It could be suggested his musical styles range from folk to progressive rock to improvisation to electronics. Early works were characterized by a somewhat minimalist lo-fi production quality, with Youngs working mostly on a reel-to-reel 4-track machine or recording directly to minidisc. However, he has been using professional standard computer-based recording systems for over a decade.
Collaborations.
A keen collaborator, he has released albums with Matthew Bower, Brian Lavelle, Neil Campbell, Stephen Todd, Makoto Kawabata, Alex Neilson, Andrew Paine (under their given names and under the group names Ilk and Urban Parable), Telstar Ponies, and his longest standing partner, Simon Wickham-Smith. He has performed live with Heather Leigh Murray, Vibracathedral Orchestra and also with Matthew Bower's groups Sunroof! and Skullflower. He was also a member of the collective A Band.
Jandek.
Youngs has also gained attention from his live performances for the notoriously reclusive American avant-folk/blues singer-songwriter Jandek. Youngs can be heard on the "Glasgow Sunday", "Newcastle Sunday" and "Glasgow Monday" albums, which were recorded at Jandek's first 3 (known) live performances. He also appears on "Glasgow Friday" and "Camber Sands Sunday". There was one further show at which Youngs appeared but drummer Alex Neilson (who completed the line-up on all these shows) has advised the Brainwashed website that this performance - at Mono in Glasgow on 18 May 2006 (the day after the performance released as "Bristol Wednesday") - did not record successfully. For some time, this left no further available live performances with Youngs as a participant available for release. However, the trio reunited in Manchester, UK on 21 April 2012 and again in Glasgow on 6 April 2013.
A Jandek studio album was released on Corwood Industries in 2011 titled "Where Do You Go From Here". As with all Jandek releases, no performer credits are listed. However, some listeners have claimed that the album was recorded by the trio of Smith, Youngs and Neilson, with Youngs' voice being identified on some tracks.
Labels.
He has recorded for over a dozen independent record labels, with VHF releasing much of his collaborative work and Jagjaguwar issuing many of his solo albums, their first being a reissue of "Sapphie". Other labels have included Dekorder, Fourth Dimension, Freek, Fusetron, Majora, Table of the Elements, Volcanic Tongue and his own labels, beginning with Jabberwok in the 1980s, and then the self-deprecatingly named No Fans Records. In December 2015 the Revived Glass label, Glass Redux, released a new Youngs album "Inside the Future" on CD &amp; Download.
No Fans Records.
Richard founded No Fans Records 1990 and he releases only his own solo and collaborative work through the imprint with some items released in very small numbers. A number of No Fans releases have been reissued in larger editions by other labels.
NFR discography
Recent work.
In recent years, Youngs has performed live more often, including shows in the UK, Canada and Italy. He toured New Zealand in late 2010 and the US in 2013. His release schedule is as prolific as ever, releasing 5 new albums in 2013. He now records for Ba Da Bing Records, his first album for the label being "Summer Through My Mind", and Glass Records Redux in the UK, the first Glass release being "Inside the Future" in December 2015.
Discography.
Early recordings.
Youngs's 1980s recordings were mostly as Omming For Woks - principally Youngs and Andrew Trussler with Barry Lamb joining them for the "Show Me A Sane Man" EP. Several privately issued cassettes on their own Jabberwok label exist, including "Living in Harmony" (1984) and "Shouting The Silent Slogan" (1986) and a clutch of compilation appearances including "Sympathy" on "Time And Time Again" with Assorted Artists (Fragment 1985) and "Marjorie Daw" on "Sensationnel N°5 - All with voices" (Illusion Productions 1987).
Jabberwok issued several cassette compilations which featured OFW material including "Fugitive Pieces" (1984), "The Great Difficult Music Swindle" (1985), and "Cars and T-Shirts" (1985). There was also a 1985 collaboration - "Rock and Roll Should Have Stopped With Bill Haley" - with The Strolling Ones.
Two further cassettes came to light through being offered on eBay. Both are primarily solo Youngs and appear under the artist name The Creation Room - "Dark Shadow Breath b/w Roog Confetti" and "Apricot Tree" &amp; "Will To Tedium b/w 19 Used Postage Stamps" (the latter being explicitly referred to by Youngs in "The Wire", issue 259 and reissued on the limited edition "20th Century Jams" CDR in 2007). The former features a number of collaborators, including Trussler. A further Creation Room cassette "Music that Undid Him in a Japanese Minute" (1985) has been listed on Discogs; again, this is primarily solo Youngs with a contribution from Simon Batley on two tracks. Other recordings issued under this name include the cassette "Music From the Creation Room" (1984) and a compilation song entitled "Sometimes For Him".
Unreleased material.
Youngs records prolifically and there are many unreleased projects.
References.
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