Richard Youngs – Beyond the Valley of Ultrahits

Richard Youngs is one of those artists who makes being a music fan an immersive and enjoyable pursuit – it’s engrossing to obsessively track back through his extensive discography when you first get into him, and then it’s fun to follow his every move once you’re fully aware of his consistency and unpredictability. I’ve been in both positions, and now am left with only a little back catalog left to sift through. Honestly, I’m not in a huge hurry to hear the rest. It’s a lot like when I was a teenager reading through all of Kurt Vonnegut’s books, and I left a couple unread because it would be too sad to know there was nothing left to uncover. Even those fairly versed in the Youngs discography – which includes spacey astral-psych, numerous permutations of dourly experimental songcraft, and a decent amount of experimental electronics – did not see an electronic-tinged pop album in his future, especially after the dirge-y lullabies of his most recent Jagjaguwar release Under Stellar Stream. But thanks to a dare from friend Andrew Paine, Youngs put together Beyond the Valley of Ultrahits, his attempt at a proper pop album.

The great news is that this album succeeds on two important counts. First, it’s a savory, jaunty little pop album that skips along pleasantly, with plenty of texture. As expected, Youngs’ sturdy but lilting tenor leads the way, inhabiting a territory that is both yearning and unshakable, and which deftly avoids over-emoting. The music is built from electronic loops, bass, piano, organ, and guitar. Overall, the songs have a shuffling quality, and the beats are fleet and light, sharing the burden of hookiness with the vocals. The resultant rhythmic blankets are treble-heavy, finding their groove and more or less sticking with it. The loping bass lines provide most of the compositional movement, bringing out color in the sequenced patterns. Youngs even rips a few gnarly electric guitar solos, making sure that the songs proceed on his own skewed terms. The results vibrate and shimmer, sounding modestly catchy, and like all great pop, these tracks become infectious after minimum exposure.

Secondly, despite leaving his comfort zone, Youngs retains the unique artistic voice he has been cultivating over the last 20 years. With lyrics that inhabit the wondrous parts of the stratosphere and the Zen mundanity of passing through life on Earth, the songs chronicle philosophical reflection born of wide-eyed awe for the largeness of the aged universe, consideration of the psycho-geographical effects of landscapes, and rueful recollections of transient times. The picture Youngs paints is generally deeply impressionistic, and the most successful tracks here are the more immediate, where he gets more specific about his subject matter. On “Oh Reality”, he sings an ode to his elusive muse, probably the only pop song that exists that beseeches such a conceptual phenomenon. “Collapsing Stars” finds someone in the throes of transition trying to get his bearings. Either rowing to one side of the Earth and back or rolling from one side of his body to the other in bed – it’s a clever homophone that’s never clear but which is better for capturing multiple meanings – the character searches for comfort in the ephemeral nature of even the most fixed elements of the universe. “Summer Void” is a paean to the meaningful complications of aging, remembering “when I had nothing to do” and “sat around and didn’t think about you”, declaring that “the void is a dreadful thing”, all to a tune that sounds of a piece with Belle and Sebastian’s early singles.

This isn’t the kind of pop which is going to crossover and climb the charts, but it’s another refreshing offering in a diverse discography. Both breezy and sublime, fans of Arthur Russell’s synth-pop will find much to enjoy here. Beyond the Valley of Ultrahits frames the artist’s ongoing concerns in a new light, making interstellar environments and deep reflection valid topics for treatment in 3 minute bursts. Though this sounds like a one-off, more trips through this valley would be very welcome.

Richard Youngs

Jagjaguwar