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CD
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GB 147CD
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YĪN YĪN, the highly touted Dutch quartet from Maastricht, returns with a sonically expansive third album Mount Matsu. Recorded collectively in their own studio in the Belgian countryside, the album is a kaleidoscope of sounds and influences, occupying a no man's land between Khruangbin and Kraftwerk, surf music, and Southeast Asian psychedelia, Stax soul, and mutant '80s disco, city pop, and Japanese instrumental folk (sōkyoku). Mount Matsu sees YĪN YĪN at their most mature and adventurous stage yet. Off-kilter disco tunes with a trans-local character, neo-Thai psych funk jams and folk-styled soul ballads remain central to their sonic identity, and the influx of fresh ideas results in an even more eclectic and effervescent sound image. Mount Matsu marks a step back from the occasionally more Moroder-esque, rhythm-machine and synth-heavy production style of YĪN YĪN. This is encapsulated in the analogue warmth of their valve amp guitar sounds, vintage synth lines and acoustic percussion timbres, evoking the buzz of being in the rehearsal space with the band. Infectious pentatonic melodicism calling for multiple rewinds!
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LP
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GB 147LP
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LP version. YĪN YĪN, the highly touted Dutch quartet from Maastricht, returns with a sonically expansive third album Mount Matsu. Recorded collectively in their own studio in the Belgian countryside, the album is a kaleidoscope of sounds and influences, occupying a no man's land between Khruangbin and Kraftwerk, surf music, and Southeast Asian psychedelia, Stax soul, and mutant '80s disco, city pop, and Japanese instrumental folk (sōkyoku). Mount Matsu sees YĪN YĪN at their most mature and adventurous stage yet. Off-kilter disco tunes with a trans-local character, neo-Thai psych funk jams and folk-styled soul ballads remain central to their sonic identity, and the influx of fresh ideas results in an even more eclectic and effervescent sound image. Mount Matsu marks a step back from the occasionally more Moroder-esque, rhythm-machine and synth-heavy production style of YĪN YĪN. This is encapsulated in the analogue warmth of their valve amp guitar sounds, vintage synth lines and acoustic percussion timbres, evoking the buzz of being in the rehearsal space with the band. Infectious pentatonic melodicism calling for multiple rewinds!
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CD
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BJR 046CD
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2019 release. Where to place Yīn Yīn on the map -- maybe somewhere between Netherlands and South-East Asia, on an imaginary tropical island. That's where they brew a strange cocktail made of disco grooves, powerful "Thaï beat" tunes and experimental tropi-synths. After two mind-blowing singles on Les Disques Bongo Joe, Yīn Yīn are back with The Rabbit That Hunts Tigers. Yīn Yīn passed last month's burning scenes and make people dance around Europe, so they're ready to blow the world with this awaited first album. Made of groovy tunes and dancefloor killers, this album could be the crazy soundtrack of a '60s hippie village on the South China Sea.
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LP
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BJR 046LP
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2022 repress. Where to place Yīn Yīn on the map -- maybe somewhere between Netherlands and South-East Asia, on an imaginary tropical island. That's where they brew a strange cocktail made of disco grooves, powerful "Thaï beat" tunes and experimental tropi-synths. After two mind-blowing singles on Les Disques Bongo Joe, Yīn Yīn are back with The Rabbit That Hunts Tigers. Yīn Yīn passed last month's burning scenes and make people dance around Europe, so they're ready to blow the world with this awaited first album. Made of groovy tunes and dancefloor killers, this album could be the crazy soundtrack of a '60s hippie village on the South China Sea.
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CD
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GB 124CD
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Yīn Yīn's dazzling second album dives even deeper into dancefloor propulsion and space travel atmospherics than their lauded debut The Rabbit that Hunts Tigers (2019). The beautiful, old and somewhat staid city of Maastricht, where the band is based, isn't really conducive to setting up a bustling music scene: and it's a place where the outsiders quickly recognize each other. Yīn Yīn are all "nightlife people", which meant their friendship initially came about through co-organizing and deejaying DIY parties. Things started to move for real when Yves Lennertz and Kees Berkers decided to make a cassette tape that drew on references to Southern and South East Asian music. Once the idea was formed, Lennertz and Berkers wasted no time in taking "a lot" of instruments to a rented rehearsal room in a small village near Maastricht. They asked friends to help out, and they became a full band: with Remy Scheren on bass, Robbert Verwijlen on keys and Jerome Cardynaals, and Gino Bombrini on percussion. A "united against the world" stance is also heard at the end of "Declined by Universe". It's a funny, maybe surreptitious statement of belief in what they do. Yīn Yīn also wanted to create an illusion of strength in other ways: "Declined By Universe" sounds as if there is a large group of people playing, not just the core band. Nods to brilliant, invigorating dance music abound, some of the thumping beats in numbers like "Chong Wang" the title track and "Nautilus" drop some thumping 1990s-style electric boogie and Italo disco chops along the way. Then there is "Shēnzou V.", which plots a stately course between eastern-inflected pop music, Italo, and Harmonia-style electronic meditations. The expansive richness in sound and feel may be down to the fact that more samples, drum computers, and synthesizers are used on The Age of Aquarius than in their previous records, a process that intertwines with real-time playing in the studio. "Faiyadansu", for example, started with a sample found on an old traditional Japanese koto record. Cosmic appropriations of time also crop up in the titles, which may give the lie to some of the band members' preoccupations with the state of the world. An old trope musically the Age is most famously referenced in the hippie musical, Hair. Other direct references to cosmic times are in the track names "Kali Yuga" and "Satya Yuga": the Kali Yuga, in Hinduism, is the fourth and worst of the four yugas (world ages) in a Yuga Cycle, preceded by Dvapara Yuga and followed by the next cycle's Krita (Satya) Yuga.
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LP
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GB 124LP
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2024 restock; LP version. Yīn Yīn's dazzling second album dives even deeper into dancefloor propulsion and space travel atmospherics than their lauded debut The Rabbit that Hunts Tigers (2019). The beautiful, old and somewhat staid city of Maastricht, where the band is based, isn't really conducive to setting up a bustling music scene: and it's a place where the outsiders quickly recognize each other. Yīn Yīn are all "nightlife people", which meant their friendship initially came about through co-organizing and deejaying DIY parties. Things started to move for real when Yves Lennertz and Kees Berkers decided to make a cassette tape that drew on references to Southern and South East Asian music. Once the idea was formed, Lennertz and Berkers wasted no time in taking "a lot" of instruments to a rented rehearsal room in a small village near Maastricht. They asked friends to help out, and they became a full band: with Remy Scheren on bass, Robbert Verwijlen on keys and Jerome Cardynaals, and Gino Bombrini on percussion. A "united against the world" stance is also heard at the end of "Declined by Universe". It's a funny, maybe surreptitious statement of belief in what they do. Yīn Yīn also wanted to create an illusion of strength in other ways: "Declined By Universe" sounds as if there is a large group of people playing, not just the core band. Nods to brilliant, invigorating dance music abound, some of the thumping beats in numbers like "Chong Wang" the title track and "Nautilus" drop some thumping 1990s-style electric boogie and Italo disco chops along the way. Then there is "Shēnzou V.", which plots a stately course between eastern-inflected pop music, Italo, and Harmonia-style electronic meditations. The expansive richness in sound and feel may be down to the fact that more samples, drum computers, and synthesizers are used on The Age of Aquarius than in their previous records, a process that intertwines with real-time playing in the studio. "Faiyadansu", for example, started with a sample found on an old traditional Japanese koto record. Cosmic appropriations of time also crop up in the titles, which may give the lie to some of the band members' preoccupations with the state of the world. An old trope musically the Age is most famously referenced in the hippie musical, Hair. Other direct references to cosmic times are in the track names "Kali Yuga" and "Satya Yuga": the Kali Yuga, in Hinduism, is the fourth and worst of the four yugas (world ages) in a Yuga Cycle, preceded by Dvapara Yuga and followed by the next cycle's Krita (Satya) Yuga.
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