Richard Youngs This Is Not a Lament (2-CD)

A welcome return from Richard Youngs to Fourth Dimension Records, a label that has supported his work since the early 1990s via collaborations with Simon Wickham-Smith. The latter returns to this set, a double album based around the notion of songs featuring special guests and, paying cryptic homage to the title of a certain PIL album, entitled This is not a Lament. Spread over the two discs, eleven here assume all manner of sonic guises that are often difficult or sometimes blissed-out but always rewarding. Most include guests, themselves from a wide variety of backgrounds (taking in all from groups such as Trembling Bells and Vibracathedral Orchestra to folk, bagpipe music and abstract electronics), and are each named after a geographical location for reasons only the artists know. All of the guests are noted above on their respective tracks. Spanning almost two hours, This is not a Lament not only once again illustrates precisely how prolific an artist Richard Youngs is but firmly compounds his place as one who can comfortably traverse all from avant-strained forms of songwriting to those even less charted spaces. As visionary as Robert Wyatt, he unwittingly exudes everything most perceive the very idea of English eccentricity as being. So-called 'outsider' music rarely arrives so pronounced and at the same time so warm and inviting. The guests here pay testament to this. tracklisting CD1: 1. Kinning Park (w/Alasdair Roberts feat. Donald WG Lindsay) 2. Cleadale 3. Airdrie 4. Constantinople 5. Bridge of Allan (w/Alasdair Roberts feat. Donald WG Lindsay)