In recent years, James Yorkston’s collaborative net has been thrown wider, and his musical influences seem to have become correspondingly more varied. From the lengthy, droning ragas and jazzy fusion of his trio (with Jon Thorne and Suhail Yusuf Khan) to pop-leaning chamber-folk duets with the Cardigans’ Nina Persson, via a side-quest in electro acoustic improvisation with David A Jaycock and Lina Langendorf, the last decade has been a busy and varied one. Now, Yorkston is back with an old sparring partner (Persson) and a brand new one (First Aid Kit’s Johanna Söderberg) for an album that displays his typical balance of melancholy, dry humour and unexpected emotional uplift.
Of Songs For Nina and Johanna’s ten tracks, five are sung by Persson and four by Söderberg. Yorkston’s only solo vocal, Where’s the Time, sits at the heart of the album. It is both reflective and stirringly kinetic, partly thanks to the brisk and restless playing of Yorkston stalwarts The Second Hand Orchestra, and the rest of the album seems to swirl about it.
Persson’s songs seem like a natural and welcome continuation of those on 2023’s The Great White Sea Eagle. Opener I Can Change is pretty, soft-focus folk-pop, elevated well beyond standard fare by Persson’s easy, slightly chipped vocal grace and Yorkston’s accompaniment. He is content to play the supporting role as a vocalist in the knowledge that his skill as a songwriter and Persson’s aptitude for interpretation will be enough to make the song soar. And that, with the help of a gorgeous, swelling turn from the backing band, is exactly what happens. Persson’s work on A Moment Longer is even more powerful. With little more than a ripple of Yorkston’s acoustic guitar for company to begin with, she conjures up a still life coloured with yearning and the constant surprise of new love. The arrangement fills out with chamber-pop strings, like a folkier, less meticulous Belle and Sebastian; it’s one of those songs whose mood progresses almost unnoticeably, but ends gloriously.
Rabbit sees Yorkston trade the guitar for piano, and the song winds slowly into existence, Persson’s quietly dramatic vocals preceded by Yorkston’s gentle humming. The melody, taking its cue from the lyrics, probes uncomfortable places with a kind of sad beauty, and the payoff is a tumbling, comparatively ecstatic section in the middle. Love That Tree has a percussive indie shuffle, aided by jingling tambourine, which results in a genuine back-and-forth duet, full of candour and pithy humour. It’s like the Beautiful South without the manufactured slickness. And closing track With Me With You is an unabashed but unsentimental romance while also giving a quiet nod to the streets of Stockholm, the city that has become central to Yorkston’s career and where this album was recorded.
Söderberg’s songs don’t differ too much from Persson’s, but she does bring slightly more folk and country to proceedings. This is most evident on Oh Light, Oh Light, which is a dramatic foot-tapper swathed in fiddle. Love/Luck ticks along on wiry drums and soft-rock piano, while Söderberg carries a stirring chorus and Lina Langendorf chips in with a classy sax solo. Oh Sparrow, Up Yours (which, oddly enough, isn’t Yorkston’s first time throwing insults, or worse, at birdslife – witness the plight of the magpie in Summer Isn’t the Same Without You from 2008) is actually a tender, piano-led ballad with an arrangement that bristles unexpectedly and serves as a perfect vehicle for Söderberg’s impressive vocal range. Perhaps her most impressive contribution comes on I Spooked the Neighbours, another of those tit-for-tat duets that gets the best out of two very different vocalists, with Yorkston seeming to revel in the space between his delivery (more gravelly than usual) and Söderberg’s, which is accomplished, controlled, and full of emotion.
James Yorkston has been recording for nearly a quarter of a century now, and you know that with anything he releases, the songs are going to be clever and funny and sad and full of unexpected and rewarding melodic choices. What you don’t necessarily know beforehand is how his choice of collaborators is going to impact the record’s overall sound. Thankfully, those choices, however varied, always seem to be good ones. Getting not one but two of Sweden’s most gifted singers involved is a masterstroke: they seem to have invigorated his work while he, in turn, has provided them with some of his most lyrically poignant songs.
Songs for Nina and Johanna (August 22nd, 2025) Domino Records
Order/Stream: https://jamesyorkston.ffm.to/ninaandjohanna
James Yorkston Tour Dates
Duo shows with James & Nina:
- Tues 16th Sept: Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh
- Weds 17th Sept: The Common Room, Newcastle
- Thu 18th Sept: The Trades Club, Hebden Bridge
- Fri 19th Sept: Halle St Peter, Manchester
- Sat 20th Sept: St Martin in the Field, London
- Tues 23rd Sept: Södra Teatern, Stockholm
Solo shows with James:
- Fri 5th Dec: CCA, Glasgow
- Sat 6th Dec: Tolbooth, Stirling
- Mon 8th Dec: Future Yard, Birkenhead
- Tue 9th Dec: Hyde Park Book Club, Leeds
- Wed 10th Dec: Durham
- Thu 11th Dec: Kitchen Garden Cafe, Birmingham
- Sat 13th Dec: Alphabet, Brighton
- Sun 14th Dec: Bodega, Nottingham
- Mon 15th Dec: Strange Brew, Bristol
- Wed 17th Dec: South Street Arts Centre, Reading
- Tue 20th Jan 2026: Quasimodo, Berlin
- Weds 21st Jan 2026: UT Connewitz, Leipzig
- Thurs 22nd Jan 2026: Brotfabrik, Frankfurt
Tickets: https://www.jamesyorkston.co.uk/live-dates/
