Yama Uba – Silhouettes
Yama Uba – Silhouettes
Psychic Eye, Ratskin Records
Release Date: 24/01/24
Running Time: 34:56
Review by Dark Juan
9/10
Believe it or not, there are times when Dark Juan runs out of things to talk about. I have been racking the pitiful remnants of my brain for some witty, light-hearted nonsense to share with you for some hours now, yet I am coming up empty. I could always rehash some old tropes, but I don’t feel that that would be terribly appropriate, especially when Dark Juan rails against that sort of thing. Even though Dark Juan based his entire reviewing style on the work of A.A. Gill and his restaurant reviews. However, something very strange has happened. I did dry January for the sake of my own liver, and it appears that alcohol has lost its appeal for Dark Juan subsequently.
This is disappointing. I have no vices left. Time to trade in the Invocation Robes and chasuble for some tartan slippers and a sports jacket with leather elbow patches and some sensible brown brogues that I will spend Sundays polishing vigorously? Next, I will develop an enjoyment of DIY or something and that will be the point at which Dark Juan will beg you, dear readers, to please shoot me because there will truly be nothing else worth living for.
Anyway, there’s something tasty bubbling on the Platter Of Splatter ™ that you should know about, and that interesting thing is “Silhouettes” by Yama Uba, being their debut long-player, although both Akiko Sampson and Winter Zora were both in Ötzi, as well as Zora being the band leader of Deathrockers Mystic Priestess, and it is a very (to Dark Juan, anyway, who fucking LIVES for this kind of shit) eclectic mix of Darkwave, Post-Punk, Goff and Krautrock with added squawky sex horn. Imagine, if you please, The Mission, The Cure and The Cult playing guitar over Tim Capello’s sax, electronic marching beats and channeling the danger of Killing Joke and the alienation of Joy Division yet doing this with the wry, dry humour and lyrical mastery of the One True God, Andrew Eldritch. Sampson is a compelling frontperson, their voice bell-like and compellingly clear at one moment, but able to drop to a menacing growl, or operate at an almost girlish pitch of excitement – ‘Shapes’ demonstrating this most excellently as it is a Synthpop-based banger that references as much from the Electropop sensibility (sensibility not being a word that I would normally associate with them) of Strawberry Switchblade as it does the breathless exuberance of Toni Basil (Hey, Mickey. You will not thank me for putting that song in your head but you’re fucking stuck with it now, champ!) and I guarantee it will sit at the back of your mind for days and pounce when you least expect it.
The record opens with ‘Disappear’ and it is possibly the most 80s thing I have ever heard and instantly Dark Juan is transported back in time until the guitar comes in over the bumps and squelches of an old Alesis drum machine, and then we are taken into the misty, swirling world of Post-Punk, with anthemic chorus and a nagging, very insistent groove that grabs you by the throat and keeps on squeezing. Texturally rich and musically diverse, the album slinks around in the shadows and rarely reveals its true form, apart from the odd moment where pure emotion cracks through the studied insouciance of Sampson and Zora. They are chameleons clad in black leather, crests like backcombed hair, never emerging blinking and confused into the light. The dark and the mist is where Yama Uba lives, although ‘Shatter’ has a Pop groove that would not be out of place in a 1980s dance club. Unlike ‘Façade’, which channels the Industrial beating of Killing Joke, the searing guitar work of The Cult and The Mission and the alienation of Joy Division, especially in the chorus. ‘Just a kiss from a narcissist’ being a particularly apt line to describe the horrors of the modern dating game and the importance of being true to yourself and maintaining your sense of self. Zora’s guitar work is very visceral on this tune, all razors and flesh carving pain.
Next up is a cover of The Passions’ ‘I’m In Love With A German Film Star’, and if you know Dark Juan at all, you’ll know he loves 80s electronic Pop and this song is a classic! In this rendition, Yama Uba gives the song a shimmering, sparkling makeover – like rhinestones sewn to black leather and velvet. It still maintains the dark, brooding quality of the rest of “Silhouettes” but somehow conveys a brief ray of hope from the black, a clarion call for the heart of an unknown person – like the kind of historian who falls in love with a long-dead woman across the ages. Fondness and heartbreak combine, before ‘Isolation’ mixes a primitive-sounding drum machine with the kind of Gothic Rock that the Sisters Of Mercy did so expertly, even if God the Gothfather says they aren’t a Goth band. This song would fit perfectly into the canon of the Sisters, or The Mission, or Waterglass or any other of the original Goff/ Post-Punk crowd. Winter Zora takes the lead vocal on this track and howls and gasps her way through emotive, cold lyrics only warmed by touches of squawky sex horn, ending on a plaintive “Take me away….”
To summarise then… This duo from Oakland, California, USA have served Dark Juan with an almost perfect slice of Post-Punk goodness that he will be listening to on repeat for some considerable time. Akiko Sampson and Winter Zora have managed to take the angst and bitterness of Post-Punk and Goth and update it for the modern age with a whole admixture of rage and considered fury. The main problem I have with the record is that there are times when there is almost a self-satisfied smugness about the music, as if the band are mugging at the people listening to it and it sometimes to be a little too clever for its own good and that took the edge off what was going to be a full ten out of ten, but instead The Patented Dark Juan Blood Splat Rating System awards Yama Uba a still stonking 9/10 for almost perfection.
TRACKLISTING:
01. Disappear
02. Shapes
03. Shatter
04. Facade
05. I’m in Love with a German Film Star
06. Isolation
07. Laura
08. Claustrophobia
09. Angel
LINE-UP:
Akiko Sampson – Vocals, bass, synthesizers, drum programming
Winter Zora – Vocals, guitar, saxophone
LINKS:
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