New Album of the Week; No.2Toy- Yello (release date: September 30, 2016)
I think, if you had never heard a Yello album before this would be a great place to start; even 30 years past their central work. Equally, if you know their big, beefy, bouncy work then this is a welcome, joyful revisiting; rather than a retread; because the Yello sound is so complexedly layered, by producer-first artists, that it is timelessly tuneful. A band from Zurich leaning on latin beats of salsa, combined with electronic trills in cascading layers; a sense of fun, never in love with their own sophistication; halfway between eurotrash leather bars and the casino on the shore, darling. Sense of fun, demonstrated thus;
Limbo, with the same deep nonsense of "Oh Yeah". I can say it's all so fresh, but I can't say it's innovative because, I already said, it hasn't moved a long way North from the 80's.
Yello are producers first, when they surgically scalpel out a guitar lick and splice it to another Frankenstein's monster of a track; when voices are transplanted in. Two of the best tracks are sung by Malia, a singer from Malawi, I haven't heard before; in the miasma of a Yello song, they can isolate a beautiful voice; an operating theatre sterility to the cleanliness of the production. Swiss clock. Yello can move to ballads or trancey soundtracks, which have gravitated towards an Aphex Twin ambivalent ambience.
A grown up sound from a couple of old geezers.
Top tracks;
Cold Flame &
Give You The World- both featuring Malia