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Review:
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Among the several Yellow6 releases i was questing
for in 2002 was this 3" CD EP to accompany Lake:Desert.
This thing was designed to be rare and next to impossible to
find. Firstly, it is limited to 500 copies, each of which is
hand numbered. (Mine is number 226.) Secondly, it's released
on TeleRAN Records, who are, by the way, out of Hong Kong! Yes,
that's right, this CD was released on a label within The People's
Republic of China. So, yeah, it's insanely hard to find. Not
that i am writing this review to taunt you that i have it and
you don't (although actually...), but rather i am writing out
of my compulsive sense of completeness. (That same compulsion,
BTW, caused me to seek out this EP in the first place....) At
any rate, please note that one sponge is deducted from the rating
of this release because of the extreme difficulty in finding
it.
Firstly -- this is an aesthetically pleasing EP in the physical
sense. I like the 3" CD format -- although they are difficult
to keep track of (so small i lose them on the shelves), their
diminutive size reminds me of the 7" single, which is my favorite
format of all time. Additionally, the packaging is nice -- the
little 3" CD comes in a nice glossy sleeve which is encased
in a tiny plastic envelope that seems to be made of the same
type of sturdy plastic that protective bags for record covers
are made out of. Very cute on the whole.
The music here is pretty good as well. There are only 2 tracks,
so let me discuss each of them.
Up first is Decay which is a good, long tune. It starts
with a long very abstract electronic drone, until eventually
a beat comes in. From then on the song is all frenetic and echoed
drums with one guitar layer droning and a feedbacky overdriven
layer behind. During the chorus, the guitar noise swells up
to overpower the drumming, which takes on a very electronic
"pulsing" tone. This is cool abstract electronic/guitar drone,
and reminds me of much of the material on Source:Remix.
Overall, Decay is about 10 minutes long, and fades directly
into the second track, which is called Repeat. That is,
the drone of Decay rises to a high level of feedback,
and that fades away into light echoing guitar buried under a
layer of feedback, and you find yourself in Repeat. In
this second track, strange noises circle through on long echo
loops, and the overall noise wavers and fluctuates. This is
not the most melodic piece Yellow6 has ever done, but it is
a very complex and layered work. It clocks in at just over 9
minutes, which means that despite it's puny size, this 3" CD
contains almost 20 minutes of cool drone.
Overall, this is a pleasant accompaniment to the Lake:Desert
album, and fans of Yellow6 will enjoy it tremendously. Good
luck finding a copy! |
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