Youth - Spinning Wheel (2021)

Having spent the main part of the last forty years writing and producing for other artists, Youth thought it was time to start focusing on his own solo work and this collection of songs have been in progress for a long time. 'Spinning Wheel', written, recorded and self-produced in Spain and London, contains eleven brand new songs including the eponymously titled lead single which also features Simon Tong (guitar) and Samantha Marais (backing vocals). Growing up with the sound of 70’s pop radio and bands such as Smokie, Pilot and Bay City Rollers - some of the tracks here are a flashback to those times and the initial inspiration of a thirteen year old Youth to write his first songs. 'Sha La Laa I Love You' and 'The King Of Losers' are intimate, honest and have a naïve and innocent pop sensibility that are underpinned with regret and loss. He’s also taken inspiration from psychedelic pop and English folk rock and his own words, he was thinking - 'Everything from Nick Drake to Led Zeppelin, through a lens of Fairport tripping out with the Velvet Underground with a couple of Beach Boys, all the way to Cohen and Rodriguez, via Jim O Rourke, jamming with Fred Neil and Bert Janch and Michael Rother. Towards the middle of the recordings I decided to remix all the songs with an electronic tech direction and it felt liberating to reimagine them in a more experimental electronic way'.