Music Review

02 December 2008 02:41 BST

James Yorkston: When the Haar Rolls In

Domino Records, out September 1st.

In a nutshell...

Beautifully unprepossessing brand of modern folk with moments of standout brilliance.

What's it all about?

This is the fourth album by James Yorkston and the first to be entirely self-produced following pervious albums produced by Paul Webb (Talk Talk) and Kieran Hebden (Four Tet). It sees Yorkston backed once again by his regular troupe the Athletes and also features contributions from an extended family of British folk including Norma & Mike Waterson.

Who's it by?

James Yorkston is perhaps the pivotal member of Fife’s modern folk movement the Fence Collective which has also spawned artists including K T Tunstall and the Beta Band.

As an example...

"I’m more concerned about keeping the neighbour's cat out of my garden/Than who you may or who you may not be f*****g/And who's doing a jig in the middle." – When The Haar Rolls In

Likelihood of a trip to the Grammys

Slim to zero. Yorkston's is an unashamedly personal brand of folk, made for his own ears. Whoever else is willing to devote a hushed evening to his acoustic laments is welcome, not expected. More likely to be found playing to the locals at an after-hours knees-up in Fife, or thrilling the converted during one of his infamous fancy dress Christmas hoe-downs in North London.

What the others say

"For me listening to James Yorkston's muisc is like coming across the interesting-looking person on the fringes of a party. Before you know it, you've spent the evening listening to their compelling tale. In this record, I get a real sense that he has found his true voice." – Philip Selway, Radiohead

So is it any good?

The personal touch suits Yorkston well. Where 2007's Year of the Leopard was sparse, in places to the point of austerity, this self-produced album has a natural warmth and an unhurried feel, totally disregarding of the pressures, commercial and otherwise, that come from the outside world.

Not that Yorkston's brand of 'folk music' is in any way revivalist or traditional in any derivative sense. His reference points are in many ways broader and deeper than folk music per se. Temptation is built upon the type of mournful poetic repetition recognisable in early Leonard Cohen or even Jacques Brel but with a delivery far sweeter and more fragile. It leads into the album's magnificent centrepiece and title track which ebbs and flows over seven minutes like the off-shore mist (the Haar) it describes.

The key reference points here are more literary than they are musical. As Yorkston surveys the barren Scottish coastline searching for recognition in the "descendants of descendants", bones long-buried, a comparison to Romantic poets seems more apt than to any contemporary singer-songwriter.

The rest of the album is, perhaps inevitably, unable to scale these twin heights. A cover of Lal Waterson's Midnight Feast bears the hallmarks of Yorkston's earlier experimentalism but in its deft mix of voice and structure rather than in any 'folktronica' sense. There is also a tuneful echo of early John Martyn in the final tracks and The Capture Of The Horse is a slow-burning epic without bluster.

However, perhaps it is inevitable when an album is as unaffected as this that it is also unconcerned with sustaining the highs of its standout title track. James Yorkston's is not the music of mass acceptance and critical crossover and is best sampled as it comes, slow burners, lulls and starts accepted.

7/10

Stephen Braund