A prolific collaboration with Simon Wickham-Smith began on the four lengthy free-form noise collages/jams of Lake (1990 - VHF, 1997). Ceaucescu (Forced Exposure, 1992), ostensibly a collection of songs, is the most fragmented and bizarre of the series: chaotically orchestrated for dulcimer, keyboards and guitars, it also entirely sung. In their quirky musical excursions the duo manages to fuse the majestic and the amateurish. The pub singalong I Live In A Big City and the political anthem A Song For The Spanish Anarchists are merely drenched in childish electronic noise. Overview And Sales Planning unleashes violent synth distortions against a pounding background. Goat is just one massive wall of guitar noise with some wordless vocals floating in the air. At Home replaces the uniform noise with a seismic vibration, but the concept is the same. On the other hand, the hidden choir of Chiliast Hymn extracts an almost religious feeling out of the hyper-psychedelic cacophony. The bouncing fanfare of Just Imagine evokes a jug band of androids, which is both the least noisy and the most amusing of these skits. The 14-minute Ceaucescu finally improves on the combination of noise and voice by playing the free-form vocals with more intensity in an abstract all-enveloping maddeningly crackling ether and with all sorts of undercurrents. Kretinmuzak (Slask, 1994) added one more epic-length work, The Proof Of The Point, and Asthma And Diabetes (Forced Exposure, 1994) contained two more (notably Diabetes for more than 20 instruments) Next came the single Worried About Heaven (Fourth Dimension, 1994) and the EP 444d (Fourth Dimension, 1995). Another peak of the collaboration, Enedkeg (Majora, 1996) was perhaps the most ambitious of the series. This one indulged in otherworldly drones. The quiet chant of Normal flaots amid tinkling instruments. A new lengthy dissonant piece, the 16-minute More Urban Music for the Middle Of Nowhere orchestrates various kinds of sustained artificial sounds: first sideral hisses and hellish moans, then cryptic tides and flashing metallic clangor. This Freudian trip contrasts with the 23-minute minimalist concerto Duet, whose clean organ-like drone exudes a spiritual quality even while it accumulates the drones of other instruments. Veil (Insignificant, 1997) added sampler, rhythm machine and synthesizer, notably in the lengthy Angels From CT. The live improvisations of Knish (Ignivomous, 1996), and Red And Blue Bear (Insignificant, 1997), with more electronics and less structure (ostensibly a children's album replete with folkish melodies), were minor versions of their aesthetic. Finally, Pulse Of The Rooster (VHF, 1998) was a simpler work, basically psychedelic pop for late hippies (Shanti Deva).

New Angloid Sound (Forced Exposure, 1993) contains covers of traditional folk music performed on guitar and kazoo.

Other collaborations include Durian Durian (Forced Exposure, 1993) with Neil Campbell, Simon Wickham-Smith and Stewart Walden (each artist created his own music independently, and later Youngs mixed them together), Radios (Freek, 1996) and Radios 2 (Freek, 1996) with Brian Lavelle, Site / Realm (VHF, 1995) and Relayer (2002) with Skullflower's guitarist Matthew Bower, and Ilk's Zenith (1998) with a poet.

Festival (Table Of The Elements, 1996) was only his third solo album and contained five compositions for one-man band. Youngs tried to turn the elements of his lengthy improvisations with Wickham-Smith into full-fledged but shorter and structured songs. The result was a hodgepodge of amateurish imitations of psychedelic music.

Georgians (VHF, 1996) was a collaboration with Stephen Todd. Most of the tracks sound like brief experiments. Even the two longer tracks sound more like ideas than like music (Sixteen 00 is merely repetition for the sake of repetition).

House Music (Meme, 1997) returns to Festival's music for lo-fi home-made instruments and found noises, and ranks among his best works.

A new artist emerged at the end of the decade, an artist whose roots were in the folksinger tradition of the 1970s, not in the minimalists of the 1960s. The three lengthy compositions on Sapphie (1998, Jagjaguwar, 2000) are slow and tender "ballads" for voice and guitar, that owe much more to folk than to avantgarde music. Soon It Will Be Fire sounds like a muezzin remixing a Leonard Cohen dirge. The tender languor of A Fullness Of Light In Your Soul straddles the border between psychedelic yearning and wavering yodel. The 18-minute The Graze Of Days is even slower and leaves more room for Youngs' doleful strumming.

Making Paper (Jagjaguwar, 2000) is a recital of plaintive piano-based lieder that sound like Nick Drake dirges or Incredible String Band lullabies dilated via Robert Wyatt's Rock Bottom. The 19-minute psalm Warriors is hyper-slocore: the voice unfolds the melody at a very slow pace, while the hand occasionally hits the keyboard of the piano. Silence prevails over music. The 22-minute Only Halogonian is dominated by a quiet, endless-looping neoclassical piano carillon, slowly interlaced with Young's liturgical singing.

Youngs also recorded an album of duets with Kawabata Makoto (VHF, 2001), a collaboration with the Vibracathedral Orchestra's Neil Campbell, How The Garden Is (Harpendedn, 2001) and an album with Sunroof and Vibracathedral Orchestra, Freak On (VHF, 2001).

The "Radios" series with Brian Lavelle (basically, free-form noise) has continued over the years with Radios 3-4-5 (Freek, 1997) and Radios 6-7-8 (Bake, 2001).

The harsh, post-industrial Metallic Sonatas (VHF, 1999) and LAmmERGEIER (VHF, 2001) are new collaborations with Simon Wickham-Smith that open new "metallic" avenues for their improvisation.

May (Jagjaguar, 2002), humbly arranged for acoustic guitar and voice, sounds like a continuation of Sapphie, but without the same focus and intensity.

Youngs also recorded four untitled duets with Acid Mothers Temple's leader Makoto Kawabata, released on an untitled album (VHF, 2002).

Airs of the Ear (Jagjaguwar, 2003) runs the gamut from the evocative and philosophical Life on the Stream to the sinister and discordant Fire Horse Rising, while radiating ecstasy (Oh My Stars), romance (Halifax Amore) and fear (Machaut's Dream). Youngs has entered a more personal and musical phase of his life/career. He now composes real songs that aim at delivering real meaning, rather than abstract soundpainting aimed at shocking the listener.

Ourselves (VHF, 2004) and Partrick Rain Dance (VHF, 2005) document performances with percussionist Alexander Neilson, that include both covers and acid jams. in particular the 16-minute Music Of The Last Sun,

River Through Howling Sky (Jagjaguar, 2004) marks further progress towards simplicity and the inner world, although the lugubrious 24-minute blues Red Cloud Singular sounds a bit self-indulgent (six of those minutes would have been enough).

The Ilk project was revived by Canticle (2005).

The Naive Shaman (Jagjaguwar, 2005)

A major detour in his career, Summer Wanderer (2005) was a moving a-cappella album.

5 Years (VHF, 2006) collects material composed during five years with Wickham-Smith.

Belsayer (Time-Lag, 2006) is a collaboration among Alastair Galbraith, Richard Youngs and Alex Neilson that yields some languid droning ragas.

Youngs also recorded a collaboration with Tirath Singh Nirmala (aka John Clyde-Evans), Untitled (HP Cycle, 2007).

Fascinated by the shakuhachi, Youngs experimented on Multi-Tracked Shakuhachi (2006), another highlight of his versatile career. Road Is Open Life (Celebrate Psi, 2006) is the fourth collaboration with drummer Alex Neilson, another venture into progressive-rock and acid-rock. Electric Lotus (2007) combines an LP of rock music (with drummer Alex Neilson) with a CD of chamber duets for shakuhachi and percussion.

Autumn Response (2007) was a bad version of Sapphie (1998), an album of pieces for acoustic guitar that left behind the artifices of droning, distortion and studio manipulation for a simple take on old-fashioned folk music. The lullabies were repetitive and monotonous. The 17-minute Something Like Air was the only one that matched the magic of Sapphie.

Surprisingly, Beyond The Valley Of Ultrahits (Sonic Oyster Records, 2009) was a collection of melodic songs. The collection takes off with the spirited The Valley In Flight, the simplest refrain after the singalong Oh Reality. The digital arrangements prevail in the Sting-like anguished ballad Like A Sailor; the atmosphere of Collapsing Stars is largely sculpted by the beatbox and industrial noise; and the existential cosmic elegy Radio Innocents is drenched in electronic hissing. Even though three or four songs are redundant, the album proved Youngs a talented singer-songwriter and, above all, a creative arranger.

Under Stellar Stream (Jagjaguwar, 2009) continued the experiment with that form of extended vocal litany and, if possible, in an even starker and emptier ambience. The slow, extended lament of Broke Up By Night is rather naked, but the obsessive repetition in All Day Monday And Tuesday instead achieves the intensity of a mantra. A poignant achievement is the funereal chant Cluster To A Star, but mainly because in this case the repetitive vocal lines float in a ghostly digital soundscape. In a progression towards more and austere atmospheres, Arise Arise is permeated with the tragic quality of Greek theater, a quality that comes from the fatalistic tone of the voice and from the sparse piano notes that accompany it. The sustained recitation of My Mind Is In Garlands, perhaps the peak of pathos and the peak of his vocal art so far, is reminiscent of church liturgy. The naked settings of these lengthy psalms represent a new direction in its own. The almost absence of musical arrangements creates a sense of timeless introspection. Youngs' songs delve into the subconscious the way Zen meditation does.

Amaranthine (2011)

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