by Dave Bertram

The Friday at Glastonbury on William’s Green, Bill Ryder Jones ripped through an emotive, moving, eight-song set with a tone that this writer hadn’t seen from him previously. He found a new gear, and learning afterwards about the sad news of his friend’s passing – the gifted bass player Bob Picken – the obvious thing was to draw parallels between the two events.

But whether it was this that drew out that explosive performance, it’s clear from the reimagination of last year’s Yawn that raw emotion will also take him in the opposite direction.

Where that record encapsulated its melancholy through its layered, stark and at times heavy arrangements – guitar figures intricately twisted around mourning cello and organ, pushing and pulling the listener in, Yawny Yawn does the opposite.

The ghostly piano and Bill’s voice sit alone, side-by-side, opening a new door into the thoughts and feelings that dictate his songwriting. Akin to a solitary figure playing in a tumble-down manor with huge rooms, high ceilings and endless corridors, he manages to strip out any elation found on the last record, leaving just the dejection and sorrow. On Yawn, the emotional weight of the record was balanced by his light melodic touch, which at times felt effortless. Here, he has the weight of the world on his shoulders, with the production making it feel like he’s singing right into your ear – opening up like a fishing line pulling out his tongue.

Sure, it’s a reworking of the same tracks, but it feels and moves like a completely different record and gives the impression of real purpose to address something the original didn’t. To draw a line under something perhaps, we can only speculate.

Some of the tracks deliver through this new filter. Don’t Be Scared: I Love You, And Then There’s You and Mither are simply haunting and really stand-up with the layers stripped away, where others meander and, occasionally, the piano patterns feel monotonous. No One’s Trying to Kill You and Happy Song fall victim to this.

Nevertheless, to reimagine a set of songs which have been carved into his brain for two years or more, undoubtedly, is no mean feat. We all need to talk more and this, for me, is Bill putting his cards on the table in a more direct way than he’s done previously.

Secret Meeting score: 76