richard youngs: this is not a lament

Return of Richard Youngs to Fourth Dimension, a label that has supported his work since the early 1990s via collaborations with Simon Wickham-Smith. The latter returns to this set, based around the notion of songs featuring special guests. Spread over the two discs, the eleven songs 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. Spanning almost two hours, it not only once again illustrates precisely how prolific an artist Richard Youngs is, but it firmly compounds his place as one who can comfortably traverse everything from avant 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. Special guests include: Alasdair Roberts, Donald WG Lindsay, Neil Campbell, Sybren Renema, Alastair Galbraith, Reg Norris, Mick Elborado, Norifumi Shimogawa, Oren Ambarchi, and Simon Wickham-Smith.