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Nov 27, 2018 James Yorkston By Christopher Roberts

James Yorkston has announced a new album, The Route to the Harmonium, and shared a video for its first single, “My Mouth Ain’t No Bible,” which features spoken-word vocals. The Route to the Harmonium is due out February 22, 2019 via Domino. Check out the Edwin Burdis-directed below, followed by the album’s tracklist and cover art.

Yorkston recorded the album mainly on his own in the small Scottish fishing village of Cellardyke, which is where he lives. His studio is a loft space that was originally used to repair fisherman’s nets but is now packed with Yorkston’s antique musical equipment. He then took those recordings to producer/mixer David Wrench (Frank Ocean, FKA Twigs, David Byrne) to piece together the final product.

The Route to the Harmonium is Yorkston’s first solo record since 2014’s Cellardyke Recording and Wassailing Society, although since then he’s released two collaborative albums as one third of Yorkston/Thorne/Khan and in 2016 he put out his debut novel, Three Craws.

Yorkston had this to say about the album in a press release: “I guess, as a musician and writer, I find myself reacting to what goes on around. So, this album is about life, the life that carries on around me. There’s family, place, and the being away from family that the life of a touring musician brings… But there’s also reference to friends departed - the hows, the whys - When a friend jumps ship it’s always a haymaker to the gut, you know? And this album is about them, but it’s more about us, us who are left behind…”

The Route to the Harmonium Tracklist:

1. Your Beauty Could Not Save You
2. The Irish Wars of Independence
3. Like Bees to Foxglove
4. Shallow
5. The Blue of the Thistle
6. My Mount Ain’t No Bible
7. Solitary Islands All
8. The Villages I Have Known My Entire Life
9. Oh Me, Oh My
10. Brittle
11. Yorkston Athletic
12. A Footnote to an Epitaph

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