Artist: Yakari.Album: Feel It Two.
Label: Ikarus Records.
Release Date: December 2011.
Review by: Anne Marie Taul de Neergaard.
From time to time, you're somehow struck by luck, accidentally stumbling upon something new and awesome while following some online path of sound, looking for something completely different. But not infrequently you're then entirely forgetting what you were searching for in the first place, all hooked on this new discovery. New to you, anyway. This was what happened to me this morning. See, I'd never even heard of the Swiss band Yakari, which was definitely my mistake, it turned out!
The band released their second album, Feel It Two, on the Zurich label Ikarus Records December 1st 2011 (their first album was self-titled) and the bandcamp tags 'indie rock', 'noise rock' and 'shoegaze' are quite fitting – while the word 'shitgaze' has to stand entirely on the band's own account. While consistently more melodic, the influence from Sonic Youth is quite undeniable on most tracks, which shouldn't really be held against Yakari though. The resemblance to bands like Green Concorde, Dinosaur Jr. and Autolux may be a little less obvious and, I assume, not really as intentional – but nevertheless there. However, on top of influences and resemblances, Yakari are able adding something new, another layer or two, a sound of their own. Even if all six tracks on the album somehow feel and sound more or less similar to something you might have heard before, having loved this kind of music for years, Yakari has a clear and rather personal 2011 touch to their sound, and most of all the album's really catchy all way through!
To an indie-kid like me Feel It Two feels kind of like coming home, the feeling becoming very intense already on the album's second track 'Higher Sphere' - oh yes, this is where I came from and I'm all in! Yakari approximates the Sonic Youth sound the most, almost making me sing 'Teenage Riot', on the album's fourth track 'Kids', which is very catchy indeed, however it's the album's last track 'Autospace' that gets to me the most and really blows me off my feet! Lasting more than seven minutes straight, this track's inevitably making me slip into a calm but yet very powerful ocean of sound, the flow taking me for a ride through the whirlpools with a couple of very nice surprises on along the way, only getting wilder and wilder, till at last it empties into a deep sea of white noise.
This is definitely an album you should not miss! It's available on vinyl at Ikarus Records and could be downloaded via bandcamp for the very advantageous price of 'pay what you want'.
