JAMES YORKSTON : ROARING THE GOSPEL

JAMES YORKSTON : ROARING THE GOSPEL

A Man With My Skills
Someplace Simple
Blue Madonnas
Seven Streams
The Hills And The Heath
Song To The Siren
Moving Up Country, Roaring The Gospel
Blue Bleezin' Blind Drunk
Sleep Is The Jewel
Are You Coming Home Tonight?
The Lang Toun
La Magnifica

Label : Domino

Release Date : June 2007

Length : 50:37

Review (Is This Music?) : James Yorkston, with or without his Athletes, is a largely hidden national treasure. Over three studio albums he has proved himself a master songwriter, all charm, beautiful melodies, bittersweet lyrics and brilliant, understated instrumentation. Roaring The Gospel is a collection of orphans – b-sides, demos and rejected album tracks recorded over the last five or so years but it sounds like a primer for his work rather than filler. The album exhibits a fresh cohesiveness, easily pissing all over the ‘proper’ albums of the bulk of his contemporaries. There isn’t a duff song on this twelve track collection, from the opener ‘A Man With My Skills’ with its clattering drums and lines like ‘I’ve heard she’s got a thing for dirty blondes’ to the sweet closer, ‘La Magnifica’ this is a real treat, full of glittering gems. There is a folky base to Yorkston’s music, guitars, bass, drums and keyboards mix in with mandolins, accordions and other assorted instruments, but the songs sound perfectly contemporary, timeless even. Second album Just Beyond The River was produced by Kieron Hebden of Fridge and Four Tet and some songs utilise electronics and drones along with more ‘traditional’ instruments. This approach is best exemplified by the longest song here, the epic ‘Lang Toun’ which emerges from a series of drones and textures (including what sounds like treated bagpipes) into a beautiful monster of a song that could be equal parts Velvets/Kraut Rock and Scottish folk-pop. It’s hypnotically engaging throughout its entire ten minutes or so. Yorkston’s voice is a warm, gentle, well-worn instrument; his lyrics deal largely with rural life, relationships and coming to terms with the modern world outside of the cosmopolitan centres where style and artifice reign supreme. Yorkston himself formerly lived in Edinburgh where he played in the punky band Huckleberry. Rural nostalgia this ain’t, despite titles like ‘Seven Streams’ and ‘The Heath And The Hill’. If Arab Strap were primarily the documenters of the hell of growing up in a small urban town, James Yorkston shows that life in rural Scotland is just as complex and full of pitfalls. ‘Blue Breezin, Blind Drunk’ is an incredibly gentle song, a drinking song with a dark undercurrent. ‘I married a girl for her money / She’s worse than the devil himself’ he sings before turning to how ‘She beats me black and blue / From the kitchen to the bedroom’. It’s a haunting, bleak gorgeous song, a world-weary defiance mixed with a real sense of horror that matches Nick Cave at his darkest. ‘Are You Coming Home Tonight?’ is utterly heartbreaking with its lolloping rhythm, wind instruments and jazzy feel, a real sweet lightness of touch offset by a pleading lyric. Elsewhere, Tim Buckley’s ‘Song To The Siren’ is re-arranged to suit Yorkston’s voice; it’s a stunning version. ‘Moving Up Country, Roaring The Gospel’, is simply awesome, an uplifting song showcasing Yorkston’s voice at its most resigned yet warmest. A tale of friends past and present, of inconsistencies, of loss and joy summed up in verses as sharp as the best poetry. Beginning with the evocative opening line ‘We’re moving up country, where lady sings “crazy”’ the third verse draws on some beautiful imagery: “And the wind and the rain in their wisdom arrive Like foolish old friends we forgive them the slight They offer excuses to offer you warmth Who knows if this could be the start of it all?” Everything in this song, from the playing, to the tune, to the lyrics and phrasing is perfect. Recurring themes and images of drink, the elements, religion, love lost, old and new friends drift through these twelve gorgeous songs, songs full of warmth, passion and insight. If you haven’t had the pleasure of Yorkston’s wonderful company before then I’d urge you to start here and work your way back. Before long you’ll be roaring the gospel as well though perhaps not moving up country in a hurry.

Review (Drowned In Sound) : James Yorkston, with or without his Athletes, is a largely hidden national treasure. Over three studio albums he has proved himself a master songwriter, all charm, beautiful melodies, bittersweet lyrics and brilliant, understated instrumentation. Roaring The Gospel is a collection of orphans – b-sides, demos and rejected album tracks recorded over the last five or so years but it sounds like a primer for his work rather than filler. The album exhibits a fresh cohesiveness, easily pissing all over the ‘proper’ albums of the bulk of his contemporaries. There isn’t a duff song on this twelve track collection, from the opener ‘A Man With My Skills’ with its clattering drums and lines like ‘I’ve heard she’s got a thing for dirty blondes’ to the sweet closer, ‘La Magnifica’ this is a real treat, full of glittering gems. There is a folky base to Yorkston’s music, guitars, bass, drums and keyboards mix in with mandolins, accordions and other assorted instruments, but the songs sound perfectly contemporary, timeless even. Second album Just Beyond The River was produced by Kieron Hebden of Fridge and Four Tet and some songs utilise electronics and drones along with more ‘traditional’ instruments. This approach is best exemplified by the longest song here, the epic ‘Lang Toun’ which emerges from a series of drones and textures (including what sounds like treated bagpipes) into a beautiful monster of a song that could be equal parts Velvets/Kraut Rock and Scottish folk-pop. It’s hypnotically engaging throughout its entire ten minutes or so. Yorkston’s voice is a warm, gentle, well-worn instrument; his lyrics deal largely with rural life, relationships and coming to terms with the modern world outside of the cosmopolitan centres where style and artifice reign supreme. Yorkston himself formerly lived in Edinburgh where he played in the punky band Huckleberry. Rural nostalgia this ain’t, despite titles like ‘Seven Streams’ and ‘The Heath And The Hill’. If Arab Strap were primarily the documenters of the hell of growing up in a small urban town, James Yorkston shows that life in rural Scotland is just as complex and full of pitfalls. ‘Blue Breezin, Blind Drunk’ is an incredibly gentle song, a drinking song with a dark undercurrent. ‘I married a girl for her money / She’s worse than the devil himself’ he sings before turning to how ‘She beats me black and blue / From the kitchen to the bedroom’. It’s a haunting, bleak gorgeous song, a world-weary defiance mixed with a real sense of horror that matches Nick Cave at his darkest. ‘Are You Coming Home Tonight?’ is utterly heartbreaking with its lolloping rhythm, wind instruments and jazzy feel, a real sweet lightness of touch offset by a pleading lyric. Elsewhere, Tim Buckley’s ‘Song To The Siren’ is re-arranged to suit Yorkston’s voice; it’s a stunning version. ‘Moving Up Country, Roaring The Gospel’, is simply awesome, an uplifting song showcasing Yorkston’s voice at its most resigned yet warmest. A tale of friends past and present, of inconsistencies, of loss and joy summed up in verses as sharp as the best poetry. Beginning with the evocative opening line ‘We’re moving up country, where lady sings “crazy”’ the third verse draws on some beautiful imagery: “And the wind and the rain in their wisdom arrive Like foolish old friends we forgive them the slight They offer excuses to offer you warmth Who knows if this could be the start of it all?” Everything in this song, from the playing, to the tune, to the lyrics and phrasing is perfect. Recurring themes and images of drink, the elements, religion, love lost, old and new friends drift through these twelve gorgeous songs, songs full of warmth, passion and insight. If you haven’t had the pleasure of Yorkston’s wonderful company before then I’d urge you to start here and work your way back. Before long you’ll be roaring the gospel as well though perhaps not moving up country in a hurry.

Review (Record Collector) : Such is the varied quality of the many bands that come flooding in daily under the new folk banner, you’d be wary of tarring James Yorkston with that brush. Sure, he’s got the banjos, fiddles and harmonicas, but he lacks the pofaced earnestness of many new folkies, instead sharing the dirtyold- man humour of fellow Scots Arab Strap, if not their bleakness. This collection of B-sides, old tracks and cover versions shows it to the full, with a relaxed warmth and easy grace. It’s full of wistful, witty lovesongs, dedicated to an array of unidentified ‘she’s. “It seems we share a weakness/It seems we’ve been blessed with "one-track mind”, notes Yorkston mischievously on Someplace Simple, while on Seven Streams he wonders, “I hope she doesn’t consider me a curse, though I hear since then she’s had far worse than me”. Rather than retro hippy-dippydom or antique affectations, these are classic folk songs spun from a real, modern life. A Man With My Skills is Yorkston at his most accessible, warm acoustic guitar buoying up his dry, wry voice. There’s a fine cover of Tim Buckley’s Song To The Siren, too, which deftly punctures the high drama of the original, finding a simpler, gentler ballad beneath.

Review (BBC) : An established fixture on the U.K. folk scene for several years now, James Yorkston remains one of the country’s best kept musical secrets. An old-fashioned storyteller blessed with a rare gift for melody and mood, the Scotsman was an important early member of the Fife-based Fence Collective, a loose collection of like-minded artists which also includes KT Tunstall, King Creosote and Lone Pigeon among its alumni. Roaring The Gospel, Yorkston’s fourth album, may be comprised of EP tracks, overseas releases and new material, but unlike some collections of this type, the quality on offer here is consistently high. Ably supported by backing band The Athletes, the singer spins his bittersweet yarns of love and liquor in a laconic, world-weary croon not unlike fellow countryman Aidan Moffatt of Arab Strap. But while Falkirk’s finest were often stark and abrasive, Yorkston and his Athletes bathe their songs with warmth, allowing them to nestle snugly in a lush bed of tenderly plucked acoustic guitars, sighing woodwind and gently wheezing accordion. Highlights of Roaring The Gospel include the booze-soaked lament ‘'Seven Streams'’, featuring wry couplets such as ‘I asked him how he had got this far, he laughed and said by propping up the bar’, a lovely alternative take of ‘'Moving Up Country, Roaring The Gospel'’ from Yorkstons’s first (and best) album Moving Up Country and the traditional ‘'Blue Bleezin’Blind Drunk'’, which tells the tale of a man who stays out all night to avoid his quick-tempered wife. Best of all is closing track ‘'La Magnifica'’- James alone with his guitar sounding like a blissed-out Bert Jansch at the peak of his powers. It doesn’t all work – a somewhat lacklustre cover of Tim Buckley’s classic '‘Song To The Siren'’ and the rambling, nine minute ‘The Lang Toun’ are disappointing compared to the standard set elsewhere. But overall, Roaring The Gospel is a rare treat for those listeners who prefer the ramshackle, organic intimacy of an impromptu fireside sing-along to the lighters-aloft epic choruses of stadium rock.