Ричард Янгс: Музыкальный хамелеон из Глазго

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".

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!". 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.

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.

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.

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 & Download.

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.

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 & 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".

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" he provided an 11 note handwritten score for the keyboard part, which spells out "ceramichobs" if you move the musical notation up the alphabet. Neil Campbell is one of 4 people credited as having provided tapes for the same track. (Pumf/Mental Guru CD, c. 1999)
Richard has also published a recipe book. Cook Vegan (Ashgrove Press) was printed in 1996 and reprinted in 2001, receiving favourable reviews.

Youngs records prolifically and there are many unreleased projects. A 10 inch record split between Wickham Smith and Youngs (contributing "Papa Deo Bilong Mipela" and "Wynding Fall of Mind" respectively) was announced but has yet to be released. 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 a total of 11 copies were made). Tracks included readings of "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen", "The Boar's Head Carol" and "Jesus Born Today". Four other tracks from this cassette were remastered and included on the A Glasgow Wassail CDR in 2007, a compilation of Christmas songs curated by Andrew Paine (see Compilations entry). In addition, there is 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, a track from which, "Carillon", was made available for download via the Sonic Oyster Records Myspace page over Christmas 2008 before appearing on the 2009 compilation The Continuing Saga of the Visiting Kitten. Richard recorded a contribution for a Resonance FM series called No Place Like Home this formed the basis of the very limited No Home Like Place album issued in 2006. 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. The Mauve Dawn album with Andrew Paine is part of a proposed trilogy but the other 2 albums have yet to appear. The website of US label Siltbreeze sees them claiming to have rejected a Youngs album (catalogued as SB 74 ) but, as no title is listed, it is not known if this was released elsewhere.