Limited edition 7” from Dull Knife as part of their new singer-songwriter series. Each 7 comes in a hard card sleeve with an option of three different photographic sleeves. Richard sings and plays acoustic and electric guitar, electric bass and synthesizer. This is one of his wildest outings of late, with a fuzzy-caked psych rocker topped off with screaming distortion and an ultra-distorted vocal that relocates his cantorial style somewhere downwind of William Bennett. Flip has a distorted spoken word piece that has a nice, haunted atmosphere. Hand-numbered edition of 300 copies.

Limited collaboration from Richard Youngs and fellow Ilk member Andrew Paine. Going by the titles alone – “Back To Santos”, “Collodion Neptune” – this one feels like an overview of alla the various moods that the duo’s previous collaborations have investigated and the sonics certainly bear that out. There are weird prog-styled monologues that reflect on the more portentous Ilk work (“Tokyo Garden”), searing acid rock guitar (“Gabriel”), weird songs with bastardised world music rhythms (“Mariachi Woman)…. but the overall feel is dark and claustrophobic, with the more self-consciously experimental nature of early Youngs sides like LAKE given a progressive update and at points an atmosphere that almost sounds like The Fall circa Bend Sinister. An oddly affecting release from these too, though I’m still trying to get my head around it. Guest appearance from Sorley Youngs on percussion and vocals is the gravy. OOP.

A while back we asked Richard Youngs to record an album especially for Volcanic Tongue, bearing in mind VT’s nebulous but still somehow specific musical aesthetic. We didn’t hear anything for a while, until one day Richard turned up at VT HQ with a CD-R in his hand. I’ve recorded the perfect VT album, he said. We took it home and it damn near took our head off. He was right: Inceptor is the perfect Youngs album for VT. Imagine Richard’s feel for soaring Celtic melodies and spontaneous composition married to PSF-style guitar excess and you’re close to Inceptor’s brain-razzing appeal. Indeed, if Youngs hadda cut an album for PSF Inceptor would undoubtedly be it. Scored for vocals and overdriven electric guitar, Youngs tears raging, iconoclastic solos from the guitar, peaking in glorious folk melodies and clouds of thick overtone that at points sounds like a fleet of Aylerised berserkers playing bagpipes. He sings over the top in a style that reconciles the wordless chants of “Goat”-era Youngs/Wickham-Smith with the electric Albion stylings of his Jagjaguwar recordings. Possibly the wildest and most euphorically beautiful album of Richard’s career, Inceptor is a dazzling slab of peaking psychedelic rock and soaring folk-simple melodies. The LP comes in an edition of only 300 copies, with stunning individually silkscreened sleeves from Alan Sherry of Siwa and packaged in high quality Japanese plastic sleeves. Pretty much your dream Richard Youngs release. Highest possible recommendation!

Another major LP release from Richard Youngs, this time out with a series of vocal-led songs that take off on a blueprint of minimal, repetitive electro-metal with an insane bass-heavy bottom end. Some fantastic song-writing here, with Richard riding peak-after-peak of ascending, triumphal melodies while pugilistic drum machine lands doomy retorts and the massive bass stalks the shadow of the songs. “We Are The Messengers” is an instant classic, a mantric devotional/folk piece that works a circular vocal into a stirring lament while “Forever Hills Of Everyday” pushes the remit even further with fast, almost breakbeats pushing stationary bass shapes and wild, roaming fuzz guitar solos into the arc of single, soaring vocal lines. Hard to fully capture the odd, synthesised hard rock/progressive feel of the music but the pull between the electro/metal stylings and Richard’s obsessive and beautifully unadorned vocals makes for a truly magical side that once more sounds somehow completely singular and yet instantly recognisable. Edition of 500 copies. Highly recommended!