Richard Youngs

File:Richard youngs.jpg

Richard Youngs

Richard Youngs is a highly prolific and diverse musician. Born in Harpenden and based in Glasgow since the early '90's, his extensive back catalogue of solo and collaborative work began in 1990 with Advent. His music demonstrates a very idiosyncratic writing style, with songs often centered around a small clutch of repeated musical and lyrical phrases, a strategy likely born of a desire to reduce the form to its most powerful core elements.

It could be suggested his musical styles range from acoustic to indie style folk to progressive rock to improvisation to space rock with creditation of electronics. Whilst early works were characterized by a somewhat minimalist lo-fi production quality, Youngs has since graduated to using a professional standard computer-based recording system.

Throughout his career, he has recorded for over a dozen independent record labels, with VHF releasing much of his collaborative work and Jagjaguwar issuing the lion's share of his recent solo albums. Other labels have included Freek, Fourth Dimension, Majora, Fusetron, Table Of The Elements and his own label, the self-deprecatingly named No Fans Records. He has composed collaboratively with the likes of Matthew Bower, Brian Lavelle, Neil Campbell, Stephen Todd, Makoto Kawabata, Alex Neilson, Andrew Paine (both under their given names and as prog-revivalists Ilk), Telstar Ponies, and most extensively with Simon Wickham-Smith, their releases occasionally being issued under the obtuse moniker R!!!S!!!. He has performed live with Vibracathedral Orchestra, Sunroof! and Skullflower and was also a member of the near legendary collective A Band, appearing on many of their releases.

Recently, Youngs has been gaining attention from his recent live sideman gigs as bassist for the notoriously reclusive American avant-folk/blues singer/songwriter Jandek. Youngs can be heard on the Glasgow Sunday and Newcastle Sunday albums, which were recorded at Jandek's first 2 known live performances, taking place in Glasgow on 17th October 2004 and in Gateshead on 22nd May 2005 respectively. His most recent solo album The Naïve Shaman saw him receive some of the most positive reviews of his career to date and appear on the front cover of The Wire. He has since released his first collaboration with Simon Wickham-Smith in 5 years, the aptly titled 5 Years.

Discography

• early recordings - mostly as Omming For Woks - principally Youngs and Andrew Trussler with Barry Lamb involved at one stage. Several privately issued cassettes on their own Jabberwok label and a clutch of compilation appearances including Sympathy on Time And Time Again with Assorted Artists (1985 Clump - temporarily unavailable, but may eventually be reissued on CD via Fragment Music of Essex) and Marjorie Daw on Sensationnel N°5 - All with voices (Illusion Productions 1987). Jabberwok issued a compilation entited The Great Difficult Music Swindle (1985) which featured OFW material. A release entitled Show Me A Sane Man was also issued in 1985 and is variously listed as a cassette and a 7“ single - the 7" edition has been offered for sale on eBay. 2 further cassettes have recently come to light, again through being offered on eBay. Both are under the artist name The Creation Room - Dark Shadow Breath/Roog Confetti and Apricot Tree & Will To Tedium/19 Used Postage Stamps (the latter being explicitly refered to by Youngs in The Wire, issue 259). Neither names the Jabberwok label on its sleeve and the former features a number of collaborators, including Trussler.

• Advent - LP (No Fans, 1990), CD (Table Of The Elements 1997), CD reissue (Jagjaguwar 2004)
• Lake - with Simon Wickham-Smith, credited to R!!!S!!! - 2LP set (No Fans, 1990), CD (VHF, 2000)
• Untitled - with A Band - 7" (Any Old Records 1991)
• Ceaucescu - with Simon Wickham-Smith - LP (Forced Exposure 1992)
• Anusol - with A Band (cassette - Chocolate Monk 1992, recorded 1990 - Greek magazine Pulse reviewed this item as a CDR and the same has recently been offered for sale on eBay but there is no such edition noted on Chocolate Monk's current catalogue)
• New Angloid Sound - LP (Forced Exposure/No Fans, 1993)
• Artex/A Lot - with A Band - LP (Siltbreeze 1993)
• Durian Durian - with Simon Wickham-Smith, Neil Campbell and Stewart Walden (latterly known as Stewart Treize) - LP (Forced Exposure 1993)
• Motorway - cassette (Chocolate Monk 1993 - most, if not all, copies run out during the final track )
• Asthma And Diabetes - with Simon Wickham-Smith - LP (Majora 1994)
• St Helena/Juniper - 7” single, b-side with Stephen Todd (Insample 1994)
• Kretinmusak - with Simon Wickham-Smith CD (Slask 1994) - occasionally erroneously listed as a collaboration with Matthew Bower.
• Worried About Heaven - with Simon Wickham-Smith 7” (Fourth Dimension 1994)
• Site/Realm - with Matthew Bower LP (VHF/Insample 1995)- occasionally erroneously listed as a split album with a side from each. The album is a collaboration.
• Denny/Twechar - with Leather Mole 7“ (Crank Automotive 1995)
• 444D - with Simon Wickham-Smith 10” (Fourth Dimension 1995)
• Enedkeg - with Simon Wickham-Smith LP (Majora 1996)
• Knish - with Simon Wickham-Smith LP (Ignivomous 1996)
• Festival - CD (Table Of The Elements 1996)
• Radios - with Brian Lavelle CD (Freek 1996)
• Georgians - with Stephen Todd CD (VHF 1996)
• Brewery Of Eggshells - with Telstar Ponies 12” single/CD (Fire 1996)
• Voices From The New Music - with Telstar Ponies LP/CD (Fire 1996) - note Youngs only appears on this Telstar Ponies album and the above tie-in single. He is absent from all other Telstar Ponies releases. He is credited throughout as a member of the band and not as a guest artist.
• This is Skullflower - with Skullflower, Youngs plays guitar on one 40 minute track CD (VHF 1996)
• Radios 2 - with Brian Lavelle CD (Freek 1997)
• Veil (For Greg) - with Simon Wickham-Smith CD (Insignificant 1997)
• Red And Blue Bear - with Simon Wickham-Smith CD (VHF 1997 - credited to R!!!S!!! on CD spine)
• A Band - with A Band CD (private pressing- 1997. Hand-painted sleeves, Youngs part of the 18 piece line-up, recorded in Nottingham in 1991. 547 copies pressed.)
• Delicate Autobahn Under Construction - with Sunroof! Youngs appears on some tracks 2CD (VHF 1997)
• Radios 3,4,5 - with Brian Lavelle 3CD set (Freek 1997)
• Pulse Of The Rooster - with Simon Wickham-Smith CD (VHF 1998)
• House Music - CD (Meme 1998)
• Radios 6 - with Brian Lavelle CDR (Bake Records 1998)
• Zenith - with Ilk CD (No Fans 1998)
• Sapphie - CD (Oblique 1998, reissued by Jagjaguwar, 2000)
• The Enigma Of Rotons - with Simon Wickham-Smith lathe cut 7”, only 50 copies exist (Hell’s Half Halo 1998)
• Metallic Sonatas - with Simon Wickham-Smith - CD (VHF 1999)
• Slipstream - with Sunroof! Youngs appears on some tracks CDR (Rural Electrification Program 1999)
• Live In Greece December 1992 - with A Band - cassette - information is sketchy but the tape was reviewed in edition #9 of US magazine Muckraker. It is not definite that Richard participated in this recording. (self released c 1999/2000)
• Radios 7 - with Brian Lavelle CDR (Bake Records 2000)
• Radios 8 - with Brian Lavelle CDR (Bake Records 2000)
• Making Paper - CD (Jagjaguwar 2001)
• How The Garden Is - with Neil Campbell LP (HP Cycle 2001)
• LAmmERGEIER - with Simon Wickham-Smith CD (VHF 2001)
• eponymous - with Makoto Kawabata CD (VHF 2001)
• Bliss - with Sunroof! - Youngs appears on some tracks CD (VHF 2001)
• May - CD (Jagjaguwar 2002)
• A Band - with A Band LP - some copies featured a bonus CDR entited TV Set For Winter, LP contains some material also found on the 1997 CD release. The music was actually edited together by Richard for this edition. (Qbico 2002)
• Relayer - with Matthew Bower, credited to Youngsbower CD (VHF 2002)
• Airs Of The Ear CD (Jagjaguwar 2003)
• Ourselves - with Alex Neilson CD (VHF 2004)
• 171 Used Train Tickets - one sided 10” recorded in 1990; a spoken word piece, listed in at least one catalogue as being Richard‘s "stand-up routine"! (Fusetron 2004)
• River Through Howling Sky - CD (Jagjaguwar 2004)
• Beating Stars - with Alex Neilson LP (HP Cycle 2004)
• Glasgow Sunday - with Jandek (neither Youngs nor drummer Alex Neilson are credited on the sleeve) CD (Corwood Industries 2005)
• Nova Scotia Breakout CDR - very few (approximately 5) copies exist, some supposedly under an alternate, undisclosed title. Highly mysterious release. (No Fans 2005)
• Summer Wanderer - CDR, approximately 10-20 copies made mid-2005, a second edition with different artwork was sold exclusively through Glasgow-based shop/distributor Volcanic Tongue in 2006 (No Fans 2005/2006)
• Canticle - with Ilk - CD (VHF 2005)
• Garden Of Stones- CDR, around 35 copies exist, most sold at live shows in Portugal in February 2005, where Richard performed alongside Hototogisu. The album was later made available as a free download from the website of UK magazine The Wire to coincide with their cover story on Youngs. (No Fans 2005)
• Mauve Dawn - with Andrew Paine LP (Fusetron 2005)
• The Naïve Shaman - LP/CD (Jagjaguwar 2005)
• Partick Raindance - with Alex Neilson CD (VHF 2005)
• The Wood Is Barren, My Mountain Is Lonely - with Andrew Paine CDR, around 10 copies exist (No Fans 2005)
• Newcastle Sunday - with Jandek 2CD (Corwood Industries 2006)- again, neither Youngs nor Neilson are credited.
• Collodion Positives : Volume 1 - with Andrew Paine CDR (Sonic Oyster Records 2006 - this is Paine's own imprint)
• 5 Years - with Simon Wickham-Smith - CD on VHF 2006
• Glasgow Sunday - with Jandek and Alex Neilson - DVD on Corwood Industries. Film of Jandek's first known live performance with Youngs on bass.
• Multi-Tracked Shakuhachi - CDR (No Fans 2006 - disc may actually be untitled; sole credit reads Richard Youngs: multi-tracked shakuhachi, exactly what is heard throughout)

Forthcoming:

• Belsayer Time - with Alex Neilson and Alastair Galbraith - LP on Time-Lag due in June 2006.
• Mauve Cosmos - with Andrew Paine, second LP in the “mauve” trilogy
• The unofficial Jandek website reports that a recording of Richard's third performance with Jandek at the CCA in Glasgow on May 23rd 2005 is expected to be released on Corwood Industries imminently.

Miscellaneous:

• String Quartets, Loops, Garden Talk - by Neil Campbell - the 6-part track Garden Talk (for found tape and synthesizer) is credited as having been composed by Campbell and assembled by Youngs (self-released CDR - material from between 1994 and 1997).
• Psychiatric Underground - by Ceramic Hobs - the track Meeting The Summertime has the credit score by Richard Youngs. The track is a very peculiar tape collage, backed with some faux-baroque keyboards so exactly what this entails is rather unclear. Neil Campbell is one of 4 people credited as having provided tapes for the track.(Pumf/Mental Guru CD, c. 1999)
• Adelade Audio - this recording is circulating on file-sharing networks credited to Simon Wickham-Smith and Richard Youngs. It is, in fact, a solo album by Simon Wickham-Smith issued on VHF.
• When Conditions Were Right - by Andrew Paine (self-released CDR). Solo acapella album with post-production by Youngs.
• Richard has also published a recipe book. Cook Vegan (Ashgrove Press) was printed in 1996 and reprinted in 2001, receiving favourable reviews.

Additional:

Youngs records prolifically and there are many, many unreleased projects. There are at least 5 unreleased albums recorded with Simon Wickham-Smith. Those known to exist are as follows -

• Song Phase - featuring Talking About Death At The Leisure Centre, Trudy Po, Emergency Exit, Quiddity, Things Like Abandonment, Everydayness, As If, Dream Song and West Of The City. Dream Song was made available through the VHF website on MP3 format.
• Live - featuring Medtner Grooves On Etna, I II III IV, Tame Take One, Tame Take Two and Autumn Leaves (note this was intended as an anagrammatical follow-up to Veil and an album entitled Evil was also mooted)
• S M I R R - featuring Saudeti, Sark and Fischer Mix
• The Random Sailor - featuring Lord Bateman and The Keys Of Canterbury
• Parrots - featuring Parrots 4, currently available on the VHF website.

Material from all except Parrots was broadcast across two special programmes by Californian radio station KFJC in May of 2001. The tracklistings are incomplete (with the possible exception of Song Phase) but represent all tracks that were broadcast.

• Tape Hiss - Stewart Walden (latterly known as Stewart Treize) reported the following in an interview with his friend Charlotte Cooper for her website -
• A line-up of myself on drums and vocals, Neil Campbell on guitar and vocals, and Richard Youngs on guitar and vocals. Booked into the studio for four hours, but within two hours we'd recorded all twenty-two songs AND listened to the playback afterwards. So we left. Nothing else, ever. The tape was released on Richard's No Fans label, but those rabid American collector's don't seem to know about it. The item does not appear to have been assigned a No Fans catalogue number but it's probable that Richard distributed the item privately. The interview can be read here - [1]

• Simon Wickham-Smith's website [2] lists as forthcoming a 10" record split between himself and Youngs (as opposed to being a collaboration). Wickham Smith's track is Papa Deo Bilong Mipela and Youngs contributes Wynding Fall of Mind. The title of Richard's track would suggest it dated from the sessions for May. The listed label, Rhizome, has not released this item, nor is it noted as forthcoming on their website. The release has presumably been abandoned.

• Other items known to exist or to be in limited circulation include Festival Of Carols, a cassette of Christmas songs from around 1990/1, given to friends in lieu of Christmas cards (The Wire, issue 236 reports that 11 copies were made). Tracks including God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen, The Boar's Head Carol and Jesus Born Today. In addition, there is an unreleased follow-up to Georgians recorded with Stephen Todd, a cassette of the music Richard composed for Niall Ashdown's play Hungarian Bird Festival, also featured in a later BBC radio adaption and a shelved Ilk album titled Herald. In 2005, Richard recorded a session for Resonance FM entitled Chips And Curry Sauce which contained some previously unissued music alongside a recording of Richard cooking the aforementioned meal, giving full instructions for those who wished to try his recipe for themselves. There were 2 radio sessions with Brian Lavelle; one piece from four recorded for radiotuesday has been issued (see below) and a live recording for Radio 3 made at the Purcell Room in London in 1996 remains unreleased.

Compilations etc:

• Zene - with Simon Wickham Smith, split 7” with A Band on other side (Baby Huey, 1992)

• WNF Tag Team Noise Rumble Spectacular - with Simon Wickham-Smith, credited as R!!!S!!! - artists provided tracks which were played in mono in one speaker whilst another artist played in the other speaker - R!!!S!!! teamed with Expose Your Eyes and Smell And Quim. Also features Prick Decay, Incapactiants, The Haters, Evil Moisture etc etc - red vinyl LP, 500 pressed ( Stinky Horse Fuck 1995)

• (untitled) - on In God We Trust a/k/a Nickel, a promotional 7" single also featuring Jim O'Rourke, Faust, Tony Conrad and Keith Rowe (AMM). 250 copies only (Table Of The Elements 1995)

• Walking The Mongoose - with Simon Wickham-Smith on 4 7" set Breaking the Plastic Hymen, Vinyl Virgins & Lo-Fi Whores (Fisheye 1996)

• Dreamsong - with Simon Wickham-Smith - from Song Phase (see above), temporarily available on the VHF records website as an MP3 file. Recorded 1996.

• Oh Father Soil - on Waiting To Be Old CD (Opprobrium 1997)

• The Hartford Address (Extract) and Act 3 (excerpt) - both with Simon Wickham-Smith - on Stand Up For Art Rock (Because Space Rock Is Over) promotional only compilation. The second track is an extract from Red And Blue Bear (VHF 1997)

• Entry/Addendum - with Matthew Bower and Simon Wickham-Smith - on Scenes From Ringing Isle, credited to Matthew Bower/R! & S! (split label release, c. 1998)

• Parrots 4 - with Simon Wickham-Smith from the shelved album “Parrots”, still available via the VHF Records website as an MP3 file. Recorded 1999.

• Wofer - with Brian Lavelle on e.g. Sometime Instant, a compilation documenting a short lived Glasgow radio station radiotuesday. Lavelle & Youngs recorded 4 tracks for their session of which this is one. The remainder have not been issued. (radiotuesday, 2000)

• 1966 - on I Am A Photographer, a tribute album to the film “Blow Up” (Plain Recordings 2000)

• Come Hear Us Now - on Festivalsampler 2001, a promotional CD for the 2001 KRAAK festival (not commercially released)

• Worse Than Pug - on Freak On!, also featuring Vibracathedral Orchestra and Sunroof! CDR (VHF 2001)

• Like Tigers Now - on Back Into The Shadows CD - free with Comes With A Smile magazine 2002 (Volume 7 of their compilation series)

• The World Is Silence In Your Head - on Song To The Siren DVD by Damon & Naomi on tour with Kurihara. Youngs supported Damon & Naomi at King Tut's Wah Wah Hut in Glasgow and is shown both backstage and performing. This is a different, superior version of the song to that found on Making Paper. He does not appear on the CD part of the package (Sub Pop 2002)

• Oceanic Days - on CD given away with issue 13 of Fanzine Overdub 2003

• Time Of Tomorrow - on Guitars Undressed CD Marrakech Recordings 2003

• The World Is Silence In Your Head - on the Routine Jazz #2 DJ mix compilation CD by Kei Kobayashi. JVC (Japan) 2003. Same version as appears on Making Paper

• New Morning - on *(There Is No Hidden Meaning) - A Compilation 2CDR Kabuki Kore c. 2004

• Sonar In My Soul - on Mind The Gap Volume 59, given with Gonzo Circus magazine issue dated December 2005/January 2006. Same version as appears on The Naive Shaman

• House Of Constant Song - with Alex Neilson - on Not Alone, a 5-CD benefit album on Jnana Records, with all proceeds donated to Médecins Sans Frontierès specifically to target their work on the AIDS epidemic in Africa - 2006

External links

• Richard Youngs at Epitonic.com
• Musical Biography of Richard Youngs'