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James Yorkston

@ Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, 24 September 2012
4 stars

by Colm McAuliffe

James Yorkston

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It's rare to hear a singer refer to his female bandmates as a pair of 'cunts' on stage. It's even rarer for a singer to do this with good humour and grace, casually dismissing the insult as a "term of endearment in Scotland". But James Yorkston can afford to be as irreverent as he likes amid the plush surroundings of the Queen Elizabeth Hall. The Fife folk superstar is on the back of a remarkable period of productivity - a wonderful new solo album I Was A Cat From A Book; his newly published, bleakly hilarious touring diaries It's Nice To Be Here; and the re-issue of his debut, Moving Up Country - and commands the stage, his band and most importantly his songs with an easy vigour that can only stem from a man at the very top of his game.

However, Yorkston has strong competition from his support act. Yorkshire-born Michael Chapman is on the wave of a career-renaissance, mentioned in the same breadth as John Fahey and Derek Bailey, having been plucked from relative obscurity by uber-fan Thurston Moore. But Chapman's performance tonight offers none of the occasional cold guitar mechanics which can afflict many practitioners of avant-garde acoustics. Primarily instrumental, always virtuoso but never meandering, Chapman's range is astounding; effortlessly combining Django Reinhardt sophistication, bottleneck elegies (using the ring on his finger as slide) and subtle folk phrasing.

In a similar fashion, James Yorkston increasingly eschews tradition in favour of forays outside the folk vernacular. At times he takes a punk rock approach to his songs - in terms of delivery rather than amplification - rattling them off at a much faster pace than their recorded origins. Or the band, guided by Cinematic Orchestra drummer Luke Flowers, distil themselves into jazz shuffles or bursts of discordance courtesy of violinist Emma Smith. This works a charm for Border Song, which sounds almost feral with Yorkston's raspy delivery.

The highlight of the evening was the a acapella rendition of Tortoise Regrets Hare. Originally a beautifully lush centre point of 2008's When The Haar Rolls In, the song is re-imagined in a call-and-response style with Yorkston trading vocals with Smith and co-vocalist Sarah Scutt. The trio's delivery is quick-fire and good humoured and the re-arrangement served to highlight Yorkston's skills as a master storyteller. His tendency to fit so many words into his songs, regardless of metre, ensures he has an awful lot to get through but his delivery is impeccable.

A cover of Lal Waterson's Midnight Feast is a rousing end to the evening but it also places Yorkston within a lineage of British and Irish folk singers pushing the boundaries of tradition. His oft-stated claim is that he wants his music to sound like a fusion of Can and Planxty, an admirable and worthy aim and one which is in sight for this most erudite and efficient of songwriting craftsmen.

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