James Yuill

At one show held at Upstairs At The Garage in North London, James Yuill stepped away from his synthesisers and laptops and strapped on an acoustic guitar, saying that he was “going to play this one for the bloke who told me he’d come to see a folk musician”. While that tag is one Yuill has found difficult to shift, it really only applies to the first few demos the blonde, bespectacled maverick recorded. Everything since, especially live, has taken on a far more technicolour, almost wholly electronic feeling. In concert, Yuill is about as far away from the standard conception of a singer songwriter as you could get. Often performing in front of dazzlingly garish visuals that cast him as a lone silhouette standing in front of a variety of electrical equipment so grand one wonders whether he could in fact be piloting a spaceship, his music thumps and throbs with a visceral power one would more usually associate with Daft Punk or the Chemical Brothers. Yet you can still tell, thanks to the strength of his song craft, where exactly these grandiose compositions started out – with Yuill alone, save for his acoustic guitar, in his bedroom. It gives an evening with James Yuill both a friendly and fantastical atmosphere in which he thrives as a performer.

James was excellent, put on a great show, loved the new music, and my newbie friend was very pleasantly surprised with the dancey tunes! Support guy was pretty good too!

We saw James Yuill at the Caste Hotel in Manchester. It was a great show. We both really enjoyed it. More upbeat than I was expecting but good for it.