Richard Youngs Atlas Of Hearts (Apollolaan Recordings LP, 2010)
The Dorset-based Apollolaan label issued their first vinyl release in December 2010, on the day of the Solstice. Previous Apollolaan releases have been made available as highly limited CD-Rs in hand-made packaging, and Richard Youngs' Atlas Of Hearts marks something of a departure, though the hallmarks are still there – an oil painting by Matthew Shaw adorns the sleeve, which was designed by Brian Lavelle, whose collaboration with Alistair Crosbie and Andrew Paine as Space Weather I covered a few weeks back. Lavelle has also collaborated with Youngs in the past.
Youngs is a looming presence on the Glasgow experimental music scene, with output ranging from acoustic guitar work through to the abstract electronic hinterlands, often created with other figures in the fertile territories in which he operates. One such collaborator, some of whose work provides a good reference point to Atlas Of Hearts, is the outsider songsmith Jandek, upon whom a similar level of underground cult mystique can be assigned.
Releasing this on the Solstice seems appropriate given the seven Youngs songs on this LP. There is a firm, simple spirituality and delicate references to nature crop up consistently in the lyrics and titles. I want to call this 'folk' music but somehow that doesn't seem enough. All I know is that its layers of guitar – mostly gently strummed or plucked but occasionally delivered backwards ('What Day Is This Day') or with stuttering, restrained distortion ('Heart In Open Space') – and overlapping vocal interweavings are absorbing and uplifting by turns. Sporadic use of subtle electronics, such as on the hypnotically sparse 'Joy Ride', augment the atmosphere perfectly.
Tracks like the opener 'Haze I' further highlight the blending together of guitar, unfathomable vocals and lightly-deployed electronics; the guitars have a detuned quality, a wobbly sound with the odd mistake left in. One of the most captivating songs is also the shortest – 'Sussex Pond' clocks in at just a minute but with its introspective guitar and mysterious vocal the song is a useful distillation of the rest of the album.
This was my first Richard Youngs album and, despite having read about him a fair bit over the years, I still didn't know what to expect. I also still have no idea if this is indicative of his usual style; further investigation is therefore clearly necessary.
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