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Yellow6
- No Memories, Only Phototgraphs CD Album 2015 | Silber 201 8 tracks, 64 minutes (+2 bonus tracks in digital version, 98 minutes) $12 ($18 international, $5 download) : Listen to the track Seal Beach : Press Release : Listen to the album on Spotify : Listen to the album on Bandcamp Track Listing: Flaming June Only Photographs Seal Beach The Fifth Return of the Saucers More Photographs Summer's Past No Memories *Digital Bonus Tracks* Beat Them at Their Own Game Photographs on the Piano Videos: Seal Beach Return of the Saucers |
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| Reviews: Our friends at North Carolina label Silber Records, bring us the stunning new album from ambient shoegaze artist Yellow6, the project of British guitarist Jon Attwood. The album concept is about the inpersistent nature of memory. Featuring melodic layers that carry the listener deep into Attwood's fertile creative fields, the ten tracks invoke one's own imagery to leave a deep impact on the psyche. ~ Floorshime Zipper Boots Wafting by in gorgeous ambient hues is the light and airy approach of Yellow6’s “No Memories, Only Photographs”. Yellow6 embraces a mellow strain of post-rock while the songs unfurl into the infinite. Gorgeous melodies adorn every track for they flow effortlessly into each other. By choosing such a loose, ambient feel the pieces positively shimmer with life. Everything comes together into a wonderful blanket of sound, one where every layer feels perfectly balanced resulting in a shimmering experience. The tone is set with the album opener “Flaming June” where the sound warbles with such grace. Kept to the essentials the song flirts with elements of slow-motion jazz guitar adding to the tasteful hovering of the sound. Much more emotionally fraught is the tense work of “Seal Beach”. Acoustic merges effortlessly with the elongated electric ring of “The Fifth” where Yellow6’s rhythm adds to the overall heft of the piece. Quite tender in its hushed awe is the lovely story of “More Photographs”. With a shoegaze-like quality is the nostalgia of “Summer’s Past”. Rich and luxurious “No Memories” lingers in the mind long after it is over with its deliberate, slow-paced western twang. Easily the highlight of the album is the powerful buildup of “Beat Them at Their Own Game”. Closing things on a high note is the languid pace of “Photographs on the Piano”. Yellow6 delves into a rich, deep sound on the nostalgia-tinged scope of “No Memories, Only Photographs”. ~ Beach Sloth Guitarist Jon Atwood uses the moniker Yellow6. No Memories, Only Photographes is his most recent release, for which, according to the press release, he was inspired by the passage of time. This leads to compositions in which he evokes a dreamy and at times romantic atmosphere with electric guitar and effects pedals, inviting the listener to introspection and self-reflection. In Flaming June, a quiet guitar drone creates a fairytale atmosphere, complemented by some noise, while the sound pattern in Only Photographes is complemented with elongated and buzzing drones and the sound of bells. Seal Beach radiates a romantic atmosphere, with a hopping pace and short bell-like interventions, and The Fifth sounds more emphatic with a whining guitar intro, percussion and rumbling organ drones, again with a quietly rippling and dreamy atmosphere of good sounding guitars, reminiscent of Pink Floyd. Very nice. Return of the Saucers sounds more industrial with singing and whistling synths against a background of profitable percussion, gently throbbing drones and a nice electric guitar on top. More Photographes is a long string of warm and dreamy guitar drones, while Summer's Past is adorned with the darkest drones that we have heard so far, albeit with a peaceful and poetic atmosphere. No Memories begins with a Pink Floyd-like guitar and gets cautious drones as a companion: measured and elegant, dreamy and peaceful. Beat Them at Their Own Game is minimalist with a range of warm atmospheric guitar drones and Photographes on a Piano floats on a combination of gently humming drones and beautiful piano chords. A quiet, restful and introspective collection of instrumental compositions in which careful guitar drones create a dreamlike and sometimes romantic atmosphere. Music for a quiet evening while the sun slowly sets. ~ William Lienad, Peek A Boo Normally when guitar twinkle-meister Yellow6 releases an album these days it's Christmas. The arrival of his 'Merry 6Mas' string of CDs signify the start of the festive season in the same way as the John Lewis adverts. This is his first long player in quite some time and I'm pleased to see that nothing has changed in the Yellow6 world. It's full of carefully played ambient drift that it's very easy to get lost in. Sometimes it's dark and gloomy like La Bradford, at other times the ghost of twinkle fingers Vini Reilly hangs over proceedings. Tracks like 'Seal Beach' are perfect soundscapes that take their time to build but expertly transport you away from the hustle and bustle of daily life by means of carefully layered up guitar. There's the odd anomoly, 'The Fifth' has (yikes!) drums (or a drum machine) but they are skittery and rather Talk Talk like and on this and the following 'Return of the Saucers' the drums up the energy levels somewhat. Yellow6 are like a Tunnock's teacake. You know exactly what you are going to get when you make the purchase and it never lets you down. ~ Norman Records Proving to be something of a hive of activity afoot at Silber Media with releases aplenty peppering our in box – all of which I hasten to add will feature here in the coming days – along with the promise of more to come as we head into chillier climes of the Autumn season. But it’s to Yellow6 that we turn our affectionate eye and ear with news of a new album due to emerge shortly entitled ‘no memories, only photographs’ here previewed by a brace of teaser videos the first of which a kind of welcome back to the fold homage to Flying Saucer Attack who unless you’ve been asleep or still crying over the news of One Direction going north, south, west and east in a crude attempt to monopolise an already vacuous pop chart, have just emerged from a lengthy hibernation with a new album. ‘return of the saucers’ is old school Yellow6, slow drip entrancement, both measured and elegant all bathed in crystalline kisses and the genteel emotional burn of bitter sweet reflection not to mention touched by the noir purred sleight of hand of Budd and/Mancini, the mood as ever undercut by a veiled and hollowed romance. By contrast ‘seal beach’ is adorned by a dreamy texture that softly radiates and shimmers to a more recognisable romantic incline, the mood mellower and distanced by a tranquil calm is delicately dappled and subtly dipped in the expressive colouring of genteel exotic sea breezes which by our reckoning are best served listening to through head cans whilst unwinding yourself of the days deeds whilst watching burning skies fading into the distance. ~ Mark Barton, The Sunday Experience Hiroshi Sugimoto took a lot of blurry photographs. Some are hauntingly beautiful and others just evade my understanding. It’s hard to say that the latter fails, so much as it seems that I have failed. So it is with Yellow6’s “photographs” as well. The stated goal of No Memories, Just Photographs is to express the dying of memories, of history, with the people who lived it and the images left behind. The loss of clarity to time and the Eternal Footman is deconstructed and reconstructed in sparse, vague guitar arrangements that are surely the very same events only viewed quite differently. This deconstruction/reconstruction process, like Sugimoto’s blurred lens, is a difficult treatment of a subject we likely fail to fully understand, but that should not be a crticism of the work itself. The album’s most connected song, the sprawling 20 minute “Beat Them at Their Own Game,” comes nearest into focus with subtle hints of blues/jazz not completely disconnected from their roots, but the rest for all of its blurriness, gives new perspective on both our time and the past. ~ Rock and Roll and Meandering Nonsense We waren je even kwijt, John. De keien waarmee je de weg van dromerige gitaardrones plaveit, zijn dan ook talrijk en soms wat moeilijk te vinden. Maar met je tigste zelfuitgebrachte album ‘No Memories, Only Photographs’ zijn we helemaal terug mee. Zoals je het mooi zelf verwoordt in een “high fidelity stereophonic sound recording”. John Attwood ofte Yellow 6 is inmiddels al twee decennia heer en meester in het creëren van diepe, doezelende gitaarpromenades in een soort van heerlijk ambient-minimalisme. Laat dat bij deze niet anders zijn. Trage snaaraanslagen en subtiele thema’s worden met een loopstation voorzichtig in elkaar geschoven krijgen steevast een boel nagalm met zich mee. Hoewel op het eerste gehoor vrij eenvoudig en misschien zelfs primitief, is het juist in dat rijk van galm en zoemende drones waar de Engelsman zijn wereldje begint. Een tien minuten durende song als Only Photographs bestaat immers uit weinig anders dan lange noten die subtiel van kleur en intensiteit wijzigen en zorgen voor een roes waarin ver weg enkele melodieuze toetsen te ontwaren zijn. Een vrij donkerrode klankkleur als basis, zorgt ervoor dat deze muziek ook wel wat gaat wegen en zowel schouders als oogleden naar beneden toe dwingt. Net wanneer het echt wat zwaar wordt, streelt Yellow 6 echter even over een paar hoge snaren om voor een kleine opflakkering te zorgen. Acht tracks lang zijn, naar traditie, in een enkele take opgenomen. Attwood verafschuwt studiomanipulaties en overdubs en presenteert graag in real time zijn kunsten. Acht creaties die zich afspelen in eenzelfde universum van lange gitaartonen, krijgen totaal verschillende bewegingen met zich mee door contrasten met diepe en hoge snaren en een ritmisch getokkel op de klankkast, telkens als een vernuftige sfeerpuzzel opgebouwd. Een enkele keer mag daar zelfs een voorzichtige snaredrum bij. Een arsenaal aan pedalen en het programma Ableton Live blijken opnieuw leuk speelgoed voor Yellow 6. En spelen doet hij weer op zijn geheel eigen manier. Van echt afgebakende structuren of songs is geen sprake. Een steeds rondtollend, hoog thema in Seal Beach waartegen volle strelingen over de snaren zich afzetten, zorgt voor een filmisch spanningsveld, dat in alle voorzichtigheid aan intensiteit toeneemt en waaruit een soort van neerslachtige melancholie weerklinkt. Muzikale tristesse en desolaatheid zijn trouwens emoties die deze geluidskunstenaar goed liggen. Het aantal opflakkeringen op deze mistroostige plaat is immers op een hand te tellen. Wanneer The Fifth met zijn aanzwellende gitaren en schuifelende drums wat tegen trotse postrock gaat aanschurken, kent ‘No Memories, Only Photographs’ ontegensprekelijk een intens hoogtepunt. Yellow 6 staat ook nu weer voor een geheel eigen tijds- en ambientbeleving. Met bedwelmende soundscapes sleept de Brit zijn aanhoorders weg uit de drukke, hedendaagse wereld. Laat het duidelijk zijn dat het opnieuw om een groots werk gaat van een grootse, nog steeds te weinig bekende mijnheer. Al draagt de bewust gelimiteerde oplage van zijn werken daar natuurlijk ook een stevige steen toe bij. ~ Johan Giglot, Da Music Vanaf 1998 is Yellow6 het project van Jon Attwood, die daarvoor in punkbands heeft gespeeld. Parallel hieraan brengt hij ook splitalbums uit met Rothko, Avrocar, Absent Without Leave, Caught In The Wake Forever, David Newlyn, Egsun, Landing en werkt hij met Dirk Serries samen als The Sleep Of Reason. Op zijn solowerk, dat zijn er nogal wat, brengt hij steevast minimale, melancholische atmosferische muziek van hoog niveau. Zijn vorige jaar verschenen Closer To The Sea Without Moving eindigt ook hoog in mijn TOP20’14. Nu komt hij met de volgende cd No Memories, Only Photographs, mijn 50ste, waarop hij zich heeft laten inspireren dat de werkelijke gedachte aan iets of iemand daadwerkelijk verdwijnt; zo is bijvoorbeeld de laatste persoon die WO I heeft meegemaakt in 2009 overleden. Bepaald geen vrolijk beeld. De muziek over deze vergankelijkheid is er dan ook naar, namelijk uiterst droefgeestig en desolaat. Met gitaar, bas, effecten (pedalen) en drumprogrammering weet hij klanklandschappen vol ambient, drones, softnoise, experimenten en shoegaze. Het is intens, intrigerend en van een aan de grond nagelende pracht, waarbij het kippenvel meermaals op de armen staat. Het zou een duistere hybride van Labradford, Dirk Serries, Rothko, Robin Guthrie, Harold Budd, Slowdive en Flying Saucer Attack kunnen zijn. Met zijn Yellow6 weet Jon telkens te verrassen en zelfs beter te worden. Een album dat lang zal blijven heugen! ~ Subjectivisten Jon Attwood torna a dare continuità alla sua produzione discografica, ad appena un anno dalla ripresa organica del suo percorso sotto l’abituale alias Yellow6, quasi del tutto interrotto nel quinquennio precedente all’ultimo “Closer To The Sea Without Moving”. Lo fa nella maniera che gli è più congeniale, ovvero completamente in solitaria, applicando alla propria chitarra – e nell’occasione anche al basso – effetti e manipolazioni digitali tali da plasmarne i suoni in un’ambience sinuosa e dolcemente ipnotica. Entrambi tali caratteri ricorrono in “No Memories, Only Photographs”, improntati a un concept vagamente “hauntologico” nelle sue premesse, ma sviluppato secondo quell’attitudine emozionale che ha sempre contraddistinto il lavorio di Attwood su corde e pedali. Ciò che ne risulta si colloca dunque in linea di continuità con l’approccio descrittivo-romantico del navigato artista inglese, amplificato nella durata e nell’estensione timbrica dei suoi dieci nuovi brani, che distillano un ampio spettro di frequenze e tempi. L’universo sonoro di Attwood muove ancora da risonanze lentamente modulate e iterazioni astratte (“Flaming June”, “Only Photographs”) per arricchirsi via via di consistenza e dinamiche che ne modellano i brani all’insegna di suggestioni descrittive e spire di avvolgente tepore ambientale. Le persistenze di morbidi riverberi di “Seal Beach” pennellano un languido soundscaping, che non manca di ammantare della nostalgia del ricordo anche i passaggi in apparenza più statici e spettrali quali “Summer’s Past” e “No Memories”. Il cuore pulsante del lavoro riporta invece Attwood ad arricchire i propri intarsi di filigrane chitarristiche di una densità più spoglia e direttamente percepibile, oltre che di cadenze ritmiche che scandiscono loop e riverberi con metronomiche pulsazioni notturne, come nelle evocative “The Fifth” e “Return Of The Saucers”, quest’ultima un omaggio nel titolo – più che nel contenuto – al recente ritorno discografico di Adam Pearce. Come a volte in passato, Attwood finisce tuttavia per farsi prendere un po’ la mano dal suo desiderio di esplorare le infinite potenzialità degli effetti applicati alla sua chitarra, fino a raggiungere i quasi cento minuti di durata del lavoro con i venti di “Beat Them At Their Own Game” e il quarto d’ora della conclusiva “Photographs On The Piano”, due ampie sinfonie di frequenze modulate che spaziano dall’astrazione ambientale a soffici risonanze. Se si tratta di un’espansione nei tempi che ribadisce sostanzialmente il contenuto del lavoro, è anche vero che la lunga durata complessiva di “No Memories, Only Photographs” combacia con la traduzione, da parte del ritrovato Jon Attwood, in affascinante materia sonora dello svanimento di una memoria cosciente in un senso di nostalgica immanenza descrittiva. ~ Music Won't Save You |
