Yoga Records


Photograph

Another great Matthew Young review, this one from Aquarius Records. YOUNGS, MATTHEW Traveler’s Advisory (Drag City / Yoga) lp Sometimes records get lumped in the “New Age” category because they just don’t quite fit anywhere else, even if they have noting to do with meditation, relaxation or spiritual transcendence. Many times it’s because the music inside is so out of step with what’s happening at the current moment, not necessarily ahead of its time but rather a seemingly latent arrival to a currently unfashionable style that no one knows quite what to make of it. Medieval electronic folk music from the mid-eighties? Sounds awful on paper, but we’d most likely feel differently if it was say, from the early seventies and from Germany, right? Well then, thank goodness for the cyclical nature of musical taste to see this unusual record see the light of day again, sounding better than ever. And thanks to Yoga records who in a bold move over the years have bought up the rights to many private pressings of leftfield “new age folk” music (they brought us the Collie Ryan reissues a while back), foreseeing that these eccentric gems would soon have a new much more appreciative audience. Matthew Young’s Traveler’s Advisory hails from 1986 and its opening track, “Objects In Mirror”, of delayed hammer dulcimer, casio and drum machine with hazy lyrics taken from found phrases and instruction manuals may sound like a song you might hear from any one of the current crop of bedroom pop practitioners such as Ariel Pink or Washed Out. Except Young’s mellow voice, inspired more by Michael Hurley (Young covers Hurley’s “Werewolf”) and Medieval folksong, than OMD and New Order, speaks to a much more world-weary experience than any sincere/ironic hybridizing of past and present styles. Recorded at home, Young only sings on a few cuts here, most of the tracks are long atmospheric instrumentals of delayed dulcimer and banjo, sounding closer to that Edward Larry Gordon (aka Laraaji) reissue we listed awhile back. Beautifully dreamy, hypnotic and strange, we think folks who dug the past few Drag City reissues from Gary Higgins to The George-Edwards Group, or other latent new-agers like J. D. Emmanuel and Iasos will really dig this. Recommended!

Another great Matthew Young review, this one from Aquarius Records.

YOUNGS, MATTHEW Traveler’s Advisory (Drag City / Yoga) lp

Sometimes records get lumped in the “New Age” category because they just don’t quite fit anywhere else, even if they have noting to do with meditation, relaxation or spiritual transcendence. Many times it’s because the music inside is so out of step with what’s happening at the current moment, not necessarily ahead of its time but rather a seemingly latent arrival to a currently unfashionable style that no one knows quite what to make of it. Medieval electronic folk music from the mid-eighties? Sounds awful on paper, but we’d most likely feel differently if it was say, from the early seventies and from Germany, right? Well then, thank goodness for the cyclical nature of musical taste to see this unusual record see the light of day again, sounding better than ever. And thanks to Yoga records who in a bold move over the years have bought up the rights to many private pressings of leftfield “new age folk” music (they brought us the Collie Ryan reissues a while back), foreseeing that these eccentric gems would soon have a new much more appreciative audience.

Matthew Young’s Traveler’s Advisory hails from 1986 and its opening track, “Objects In Mirror”, of delayed hammer dulcimer, casio and drum machine with hazy lyrics taken from found phrases and instruction manuals may sound like a song you might hear from any one of the current crop of bedroom pop practitioners such as Ariel Pink or Washed Out. Except Young’s mellow voice, inspired more by Michael Hurley (Young covers Hurley’s “Werewolf”) and Medieval folksong, than OMD and New Order, speaks to a much more world-weary experience than any sincere/ironic hybridizing of past and present styles. Recorded at home, Young only sings on a few cuts here, most of the tracks are long atmospheric instrumentals of delayed dulcimer and banjo, sounding closer to that Edward Larry Gordon (aka Laraaji) reissue we listed awhile back. Beautifully dreamy, hypnotic and strange, we think folks who dug the past few Drag City reissues from Gary Higgins to The George-Edwards Group, or other latent new-agers like J. D. Emmanuel and Iasos will really dig this. Recommended!



August 15, 2010, 11:07pm