Quite possibly avant-folky Richard Youngs’ most accessible release, May is a startlingly focused work, both meditative and hypnotic in its stark ruminations on a select few acoustic guitar and lyrical phrases. Richly expressive while working with an economy of words and sounds, Youngs is more concise and altogether less meandering on this outing than on the majority of his previous releases, with his guitar work always impressively fluid and his songwriting imbued with a deep sense of wonder. Halfway between the traditional English folk of Nic Jones and avant-garde guitar styles of John Fahey, the album’s beauty is difficult to pinpoint but is intuitively understood, with all the right elements adding up to make a singularly poignant marriage of simple melody and lyric. – Matt Fink