Yorkston/Thorne/Khan are an experimental group that includes James Yorkston, one of the most “influential singer/songwriters on the Scottish folk scene”, Suhail Yusuf Khan, award winning sarangi player and classical singer from New Delhi and Jon Thorne, best known as jazz double bass player with electro outfit Lamb.
This is Scottish-Irish-Indian-English music in the raw, Yorkston's familiar steel guitar strings pulled, pushed and bent into more unfamiliar acoustic drones, the bass dropping anchors through the floor. Rather than world music per se, this sounds more idiosyncratic, a temporary structure bivouacking by the side of the indie-folk, art music tradition, while its widening horizons extend back to the Sixties heyday of the Incredible String Band, and forward to this singular album's satellite orbit over the folk music, Indian classical and indie music of today – all these musical ley lines threaded into a new kind of eclectic, domestic setting.
“Playing together as Yorkston / Thorne / Khan, we tackle a wide array of different sounds and songs. Alongside pieces of our own, there’s a fair chunk of improvisation, plus covers of Ivor Cutler’s ‘Little Black Buzzer’ and Lal Waterson’s ‘Song For Thirza’. Jon’s jazz back-ground definitely comes to the fore, as does Suhail’s devotional singing and outstanding sarangi playing. I just do my best to keep up…” – James Yorkston
‘Everything Sacred’ will be available on CD, LP, Deluxe LP and digitally on January 15th 2016via Domino and can be pre-ordered here.
You can stream 'Little Black Buzzer' a cover of Ivor Cutler’s original and featuring the distinctive young Irish singer Lisa O’Neill