Richard James - We Went Riding

(Gwymon)

This second solo album from Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci co-founder James is a fairly infectious, ribald traipse across drowsy folk, garage-rock and pub R&B. It features his erstwhile bandmate Euros Childs and exalted singer-songwriter Cate le Bon (on the lovely ‘From Morning Sunshine’).

Any predilection for scuzzy, backroom rock’n’roll (‘Faces’) is eclipsed by laidback country: particularly the balmy chamber-prog of ‘Aveline’ and the string-drawn voyage of ‘When the Letter Arrives’.

Mainly though, it’s an amiable reminder of Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci’s folk-pop psychedelia, and an excuse to dig out ‘Young Girls and Happy Endings’ – as if we ever needed one.