Anyone who has been following KLOF MAG over the 22 years we’ve been running will be very familiar with James Yorkston. He was the first member of the Fence Collective (remember them?) to emerge from the creative oddity that is the East Neuk of Fife. For his first solo show, he supported Bert Jansch, and his first tour was supporting John Martyn. After those heady heights, he signed to Domino and recorded his debut studio album in a damp, soaked cottage in the Scottish Borders. Domino subsequently released Moving Up Country, which went on to become Rough Trade’s Album of the Year 2002.
After 25 years of being with Domino, he is to celebrate his varied and equally collaborative journey with a career-spanning retrospective double album titled ‘La Magnifica’, out on November 27th, in plenty of time for Christmas.
Alongside some choice career highlights from his 15 albums on the label are two additional brand-new tracks, ‘Hard Times Of Old Edinburgh’ and ‘The Time Was Short, But I was Happy’, the first of which is available digitally today.
The accompanying video for Hard Times Of Old Edinburgh was directed by Lewis Baillie. James writes: “This song was recorded late one evening at the Nina and Johanna sessions. Because neither Nina and Johanna are on it, I didn’t consider it for that album, but it’s a track I’ve returned to time and time again since and I’m delighted it’s finally being released. It’s mostly talking about the carefree optimism of my late teenage years, when I first moved from rural Fife to the bright lights of Edinburgh. “We couldn’t sack the singer as he owned all the amps” – indeed.”
Stream: https://jamesyorkston.ffm.to/hardtimes
About the album, James recalls: “Whilst compiling this I was basically trying to cover each era of my songwriting. ‘La Magnifica’, the song itself is from the very, very beginning. The lyrics say, ‘What would you say If I offered this all up and moved like a wreck to the Neuk?’ … which is what happened… And most of the songs on this compilation were written after I moved back home to the East Neuk”.
His choices span the earliest days with the Athletes, through his Yorkston/Thorne/Khan experiments, and finally to his recent Swedish adventures via collaborations with Nina Persson and Johanna Söderberg.
As Thomas Blake noted in his review of The Great White Sea Eagle, Yorkston’s choice of collaborators has always had a pleasing unpredictability. “From the early albums produced by the likes of Kieran Hebden or former Cocteau Twins bassist Simon Raymonde to later recordings with The Big Eyes Family Players and Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor, there has always been a sense that he has chosen his accomplices well, and with one eye on the left field.” And on The Wide Wide River he notes: “early masterpieces like the Four Tet-produced Just Beyond The River (2004) and 2006 fan favourite The Year Of The Leopard are easily matched by later albums like 2019’s The Route To The Harmonium. Many of his releases have been in collaboration with other artists – from his initial backing band The Athletes to recent link-ups with Suhail Yusuf Khan and Jon Thorne – a fact which makes the consistency of his output all the more remarkable.”
La Magnifica will be available on double LP, exclusive Domino Mart double LP (featuring a hand-numbered booklet), Dinked double pink/red vinyl edition featuring a bonus covers CD and standard double CD. You can pre-order the album HERE, or pre-order signed copies directly from James HERE
La Magnifica track listing:
1 Summer Song
2 Queen of Spain
3 Sweet Jesus
4 I Awoke
5 Tortoise Regrets Hare
6 The Lang Toun
7 Little Black Buzzer (featuring Lisa O’Neill)
8 St Patrick
9 Broken Wave (A Blues For Doogie)
10 Woozy With Cider (Jon Hopkins Remix)
11 La Magnifica
12 Would You Have Me Born With Wooden Eyes?
13 When the Haar Rolls In
14 A Moment Longer (featuring Nina Persson)
15 Struggle
16 An Upturned Crab (featuring Nina Persson)
17 Oh Light, Oh Light (featuring Johanna Söderberg)
18 Hard Times Of Old Edinburgh
19 The Time Was Short, But I was Happy
Live Dates
James will be performing the following UK solo dates towards the end of the year, including a special Christmas show at London’s Hoxton Hall on the 9th of December. In January, he has shows in Stockholm and Gothenburg. Full dates are as follows:
23rd – 25th October – Boia Festival – St Davids – info
27th November – Edinburgh – Pleasance Theatre – tickets
28th November – Dunkeld – Birnam Arts – tickets
30th November – The Central – Gateshead – tickets
1st December – Wolverhampton Arts Centre – tickets
2nd December – Folkestone – Quarterhouse – tickets
3rd December – Totnes – The Barrel House – tickets
4th December – Frome – Assembly Rooms – tickets
5th December – Bristol -The Folk House – tickets
6th December – Lyme Regis – Marine Theatre – tickets
8th December – Cambridge – Junction 2 – tickets
9th December – London – Hoxton Hall – tickets
10th December – Leeds – Hyde Park Book Club – tickets
11th December – Manchester – Halle St Michaels – tickets
12th December – Liverpool – St Michaels – tickets
13th December – Hull – Adelphi Theatre –tickets
29th January – Stockholm – Fasching – tickets
20th January – Gothenburg – Skeppet – tickets
In addition to the forthcoming release of La Magnifica, James’ new novel Callum, Reine, Sylvie & Sparrow will be published on 27 October by Oldcastle Books. Callum, Reine, Sylvie and Sparrow is a wry, tender and quietly life-affirming novel about musician and journalist Callum as he reflects back on the people and places who have shaped him. The novel takes the reader from rural Scotland and the west coast of Ireland to Paris and beyond and is informed by Yorkston’s own experiences as a touring musician.
“Yorkston is a brilliant writer, he never fails to deliver something unique” – Sam Heughan
Book readings:
Thursday 22nd October – Kenilworth – Treehouse Bookshop – info
Saturday 24th October – 12pm, Dead Sea Records, St David’s – info
Thursday 27th October – Kirkcaldy – Waterstones – info
Monday 2nd November – St Andrews – Toppings – info