Yellow6
DisappearHere
(Make Mine Music)
Jon Attwood has been creating music under the name of Yellow6 for quite some time now, and at a rather prolific and consistent rate. In the land of dreamy ambient soundscapes, he's easily created enough music for a 10CD boxset, yet many people still haven't heard his name. In a parallel world, he'd be one of the new flagships of the 4AD label, continuing on their tradition of lovely guitar textures brought forth on earlier releases by everyone from The Cocteau Twins to This Mortal Coil. I don't know Attwood personally, and perhaps he wouldn't even want to hop on with 4AD, but what I do know is that DisappearHere is the latest in a long line of great releases from him.
As you might expect (depending on whether you've heard music from Yellow6 before), there aren't many surprises musicallly on the release. There's a little more use of different instrumentation (most notibly the piano), as well as some slightly more clicky rhythm programming, but it's nothing that would make you want to consider calling it 'glitch.' One of the things that I've personally come to know Attwood for his that he seems to know his modus operandi very well, and although he doesn't stretch much outside those boundaries, he's amazingly consistent at what he does.
The 11 track release both opens and closes with "Piano Song," and the minor chords and sparse feel both sets the stage and empties it out nicely. "Chrysler" continues the use of piano, winding some sparse piano and guitar melodies around one another while a muffled beat chugs and warm drones create a slowly moving bed for it to sit upon. "Cycle" builds very slowly over some delayed tin-can beats, as waves of guitar drones and some bright strumming add just a touch of light to the fairly dark release. It's on "Cycle" that the somewhat clicky percussion comes in, but it's never done to the point of head-spinning (see above statement about boundaries) and adds another lighter element to the somewhat weighty track.
"Interstate" again takes a somewhat slightly different percussive sound (almost electro-sounding spurts of noise) and pans them back and forth as gentle folds of guitar and a repeated melody slowly pull themselves out the depths. "Loop (Part Two)" again brings back the piano, and although it's again used in a very sparse way (only two notes repeating set on heavy delay), it provides an interesting bed of sound to build the track upon.
As with most Yellow6 releases, the majority of tracks on this disc are fairly long and take their time in evolving. At 11 tracks and over 65 minutes, it's an album that would appeal to the 4AD fans mentioned above, those who like the more sparse work of Durutti Column, or any fan of ambient/drone rock. While this album isn't my favorite of his work (that title goes to his Catherine Whiskey EP on the Jonathon Whiskey label), but as mentioned above, you could definitely do worse in looking for instrumental ambient music that is built mainly around delicate guitars and warm drones.
Rating: 7
