Beyond the Valley of Ultrahits

I'll just come out and say it: Richard Youngs is probably my favourite contemporary solo artist. He's been releasing music pretty much nonstop since the early 80's, and has dipped his feet in enough to genres that I suspect he'd have to graft a third foot onto his left ankle to become any more diverse. From drone, free jams and noise to minimalist folk and half-hour piano ballads, this guy's got his bases covered. And just to make sure he's got even non-existent bases covered, he'll quietly throw out some completely left-field albums. So if you aspiring free-acoustic/kazoo artists have something planned, just know that Youngs beat you to it with New Angloid Sound. And watch your back, Jandek: Summer Wanderer is stiff competition in the "Best Independent A Capella Album (Male)" category. And if any of you motherfuckers are planning on recording over an entire album with an alternate take of that entire album, you'll probably kill yourself after listening to Autumn Response, because you won't do better. Sorry.



Basically, every time you pick up something that says "Richard Youngs" on the cover, don't think for a second you can even guess at what you're getting. The only constant is his consistently high quality of output; this may be total fanboyism, but Youngs hasn't really done any wrong.



So what are you to make of Beyond the Valley of Ultrahits, then? It's synth-pop. Of course.

Incredibly lush synth-pop at that. Layered synths, twittering drum machines, and, of course, Youngs's brillaint voice, dubbed and sounding more majestic than ever. It's a charmingly simple album, too, contrasting sharply with some of his more multi-tiered epics like River Through Howling Sky: simple melodies looped and piled on to each other, catchy choruses... really, it's just a great synthy/poppy record.

And y'know what? I'm gonna give you the whole thing. This was released in only 2 pressings, each tragically limited to 100. It would be an absolute shame if more people didn't get the chance to hear it.



Richard Youngs - Beyond the Valley of Ultrahits

Since you can't buy this album, show some support and buy some of his back catalogue from the fine folks at Jagjaguwar.

Enjoy, and feel free to comment.