Glaswegian free music maverick Richard Youngs has been on a feverish tear of late, collaborating with fellow outsiders Makato Kawabata, Alex Neilson, Matthew Bower, and Jandek in addition to a stream of solo releases. The Naïve Shaman is the seventh Youngs solo album to be released on Jagjaguwar, and like its predecessors it is truly a one-man affair, with no contributions from any supporting musicians. Beyond this essential solitude, however, Youngs' albums can be so dissimilar from one another as to seem of completely different species, as he continues his diligent, egoless quest for new avenues into the outer realms of the spirit.
Assembled entirely on his home computer, The Naïve Shaman represents Youngs' first extensive foray into digital recording. On these five tracks, his distinctive psychedelic mantras are heavily fortified by deep, resonant electric bass tones and encircling, multi-layered vocals. As a result, the album possesses a thick, enveloping warmth that signals a dramatic departure from both the ravaged isolation of 2004's River Through Howling Sky as well as the more folk-oriented material of earlier works like 2002's May. And though its bold creation makes The Naïve Shaman one of Youngs' most adventurously experimental releases, its supple melodic figures also make it quite likely his most approachable.
In fact, the tranquil waves of album opener "Life on a Beam" are initially so temperate and sonorous that my wife rather inexplicably mistook it for a Sting track-- a comparison I'm still not entirely sure what to do with. Fortunately, things get decidedly more shamanic on the 10-minute centerpiece "Sonar In My Soul", which matches a repetitive, spiraling vocal melody to a burbling bass throb, dub-like electronic effects, and caustic guitar interjections. As with so many of Youngs' best minimalist recitations, this piece achieves an organic sense of constant renewal, perpetually gathering momentum until its roots have secured a permanent anchor in the memory.
Following the brief, folk-like echo of "Once It Was Autumn", Youngs promptly cycles the seasons for the monumental closer "Summer's Edge II", a blurred epic on which he abandons himself entirely to his disorienting solstice hymn. Over a dense hive of treated guitar drones and distant, free-form percussion, Youngs obliquely submits his services to the universe, "Doors are turning/ sing through me, sing through me." And as the The Naïve Shaman drifts to a close with the hypnotically repeated two-word processional "Summer's edge, summer's edge," Youngs' fearless intensity might immediately prompt his faithful pilgrims to build eager anticipation for his next singularly inspired liturgy.
