James Yorkston is one of those fortunate artists who stumble upon the zeitgeist rather than actively hunt it down. When his debut album appeared in the summer of 2002, the singer-songwriter from Fife arrived just as Britain’s indigenous folk music was enjoying a welcome upsurge in credibility. A member of the cloistered Fence Collective, Yorkston seemed healthily ignorant of such quirks of fashion. When it was suggested that his frank, gristly updates of traditional music provided a British correlative to the work his labelmate Will Oldham was pursuing with American folk, Yorkston merely shrugged. He neither knew, nor seemed to care, about context.
After two years of extravagant praise, decent sales and energetic touring, it’s hard to imagine Yorkston being quite so magically innocent now. Nevertheless, “Just Beyond The River” at least feels like the work of an artful recluse, even with Kieran Hebden recruited as producer. Yorkston is a marvellous folk singer, not least because of the way he gracefully circumnavigates cliché.
The likes of “Hermitage” may appear ineffably delicate, but they’re the work of a full-blooded lyricist who fixates on lust – his “Catholic roving eye” - and the uncertainties of love ahead of romantic reverie. And though there’s a rustic, homebrewed air to these impeccable recordings, Yorkston (like the similarly-inclined Alasdair Roberts) never resorts to whimsy or old-world affectation. Out of step with what we perceive as modern, perhaps, yet never nostalgic or anachronistic, even when he’s singing a traditional song like “Edward”.
Mainly, the album is conducted at a thoughtful, gentle pace. But there are rare and lovely moments, as on “Banjo #1”, when the commendably discreet Athletes let fly, and the rickety power of the band becomes apparent. On the closing “The Snow It Melts The Soonest”, they even briefly lock into the sort of damp, bug-eyed, Borders motorik that distinguished their outstanding 2002 single, “The Lang Toun”. In this way, “Just Beyond The River” emerges as an engagingly modern folk record, and one which – refreshingly – appears to have arrived there by accident.
