yellow6

Do you, I’m not altogether certain whether or not we’ve a copy of Yellow6’s debuting 7 inch for Enraptured, I do recall a yellow (what else?) vinyl release, perhaps on the sadly gone Bearos that we commented upon in another life for the Record Mart and Buyer (and of course a printed issue of Losing Today, it featuring as I recall in a singles spot called Tales from the Attic – them’s were the days). Anyway, as you may be all too aware, Yellow6 is celebrating his 20th anniversary (technically last year) and so it perhaps seems only fitting that he returns home to the label that championed him all those years ago, in truth a mainstay throughout these two decades for a rather special release. On limited lathe press, just 66 copies through of course, Enraptured, a chance to revisit old memories, a joining of the circle if you like with that aforementioned journey’s start being retraced, revisited and refocused anew with older, wiser eyes and ears. Four tracks feature within, the original tapes of that debut – ‘perception received’ and ‘milestone’ here re-soldered and reappraised by new re-workings of them recorded late November last year. What’s interesting here looking back, is that even then, Atwood was well versed in procuring such widescreen sonic resolution from the barest of palettes, applying that scratched noise sheen atop dreamy cathedralesque motifs,it lent itself to the New Zealand scene of the late 80’s, something carried forth with much aplomb and equal dexterity by the likes of Roy Montgomery and Flying Saucer Attack. Add to this his sense of space, the use of silence and pause as a seventh string and the sheer expressive nature of the sounds, that telling of a story or the describing of a moment without the need for words has, upon me at least, never been lost nor neither that magisterial more so, crystalline toning that has always been a trademark facet of the Y6 craft, that Cocteau-ian bliss kiss as ventured on ‘perception received’. Fast forward to ’18, the same cut, is adored with a seamless smoothing, the edges filed and curved, drenched in dissolving fissures of rippling wells of reflective melancholy, yet beneath the tormented and yearnful tearing, a tenderness softly radiates from behind the despairing clouds awash in blissfully hazed faraways that signal just for a briefness of time, a moment recaptured. As to ‘milestone’, as hateful as its going to sound, I’m still in the originals camp, sure enough the ’18 version is superbly primed with a time ticking pinch, its grace falling stars extinguishing siren calls descending with an approaching dead stop finality,(something which ought at least to have some of you recalling the much missed Workhouse), yet there’s a dead eyed realism to the v.98 that, showered with an inescapable solace, there’s a suggestion of a tipping point long since passed, oh and its very godspeed in terms of measure, effect and delivery. https://yellow6.bandcamp.com/album/perception-received-xx