Track Listing

1. Summer Song
2. Steady As She Goes
3. Year Of The Leopard
4. 5am
5. Woozy With Cider
6. I Awoke
7. Brussels Rambler
8. Orgiva Song
9. Don't Let Me Down
10. Us Late Travellers

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #30215 in Music
• Released on: 2006-09-25
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

Home James !
This is a lovely album . Warm songs gently spun in the cold Scottish air,created by a modest yet extremely talented tunesmith.
James Yorkston has the look of bank clerk on his day off. Not for him the razamatazz of show-biz. Instead,James of the wooly jumper and faded cords lets his music do the talking for him and weaves some memorable tales torn straight from the heart.
As part of Fife's 'Fence Collective'. James has been one of their most successful ambassadors. Becoming a minor cult figure on the folk music circuit and attracting a new legion of admirers through his appearence on the FC feature on BBC2's 'Culture Show' where daffy dame Laura Lavigne confessed her devotion to the music of JY.
Every track on the album is a quality work yet the melancholic narrative spoken piece 'Woozy with Cider' stands out.
Personally I hope James avoids the ratamatazz of commercial success. He's too good to become a Radio 2 mainstay or engender the hostility which generally follows success in our 'build em up...knock em down' culture. Hopefully he'll remain the talented outsider with a cult following.

A return to form
While I loved the tuneful country-folk of Yorkston's first CD, Moving Up Country, I was slightly let down by its follow-up, the starker Just Beyond The River. The slight opener on The Year Of The Leopard, Summer Song, didn't bode well either, but Steady As She Goes is as beautiful as any song that Yorkston has recorded, and then it only gets better. The songs are melodic masterpieces, often only based upon Yorkston's wonderful guitar playing, but with other instruments weaving in and out and with some haunting harmony vocals by Jenny Casino.
Recommended!