YELLO: CLASSIC/DUD; SEARCH& DESTROY

and they are back.
all the berlin shows are sold out.
and i am unable to get the new vevo hosted video, limbo, (any connection to their brilliant track, bimbo, i wonder !) to play.
ahh.

pr re new album, TOY :

Like all great Yello records, Toy is playful, super-sharp and ultra-modern; something akin to a set of vivid snapshots of a utopian futurist Europe rendered in glorious techno-colour. Taking in joyous liquid electronics (on first single Limbo, Tool Of Love), continental torch songs (Starlight Scene, Dark Side), glimmering Balearic sunset music (Blue Biscuit) and myriad points in between, Toy is the unmistakable sound of Dieter Meier and Boris Blank gleefully working at the top of their game after nearly four decades making music together.

Recorded at Yello Studio, Zurich, Toy features guests Fifi Rong (vocals on Kiss the Cloud, Dark Side) Malia (vocals on Cold Flame, Starlight Scene, Give You The World) Heidi Happy (vocals on Dialectical Kid), Jeremy Baer (all guitars).

Yello are Dieter Meier and Boris Blank. Their first LP - Solid Pleasure - was released in 1980. Since then, they have forged a unique career that’s influenced everything from techno culture and hip hop to the Simpsons. Yello recently announced their first ever full live shows in their thirty-seven year career. They will play songs from Toy and ‘reloaded classics’ over four nights in a decommissioned German power station – KraftwerkBerlin – between October 26th and 30th. Each of the four gigs sold out within two days of going on sale.

Tracklisting: Frautonium Intro / Limbo / 30,000 Days / Cold Flame / Kiss The Cloud / Pacific AM / Starlight Scene / Give You The World / Tool of Love / Dialectical Kid / Dark Side / Blue Biscuit / Magma / Frautonium

Toy is the unmistakable sound of Dieter Meier and Boris Blank gleefully working at the top of their game after nearly four decades making music together.

it's basically the last three albums all over again, so yes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AA-wKK3azN4

looks excellent.

yes, this looks fantastic.
there was a very positive review of the show in the new mojo, according to which, this was the encore.
should have been the full 12+ version.

that is the best i've ever seen a 'pop video' look, on a backdrop at a gig. coincidentally we were bellyaching on some thread or other, about how bad promos of the 80s and 90s look now on YouTube and how they never seem to come out in HD or Blu-Ray but somehow theirs look amazing up there.

i suspect thats down to boris.
he is all about the visual representation these days with his love of movie scores etc.
even in the early days, these guys had access to serious tech toys.

Boris? Dieter was a visual artist before he became a vocalist and he's directed all of Yello's videos (and famously worked for years on a stage musical based on their music that was never properly finished), so presumably he's the one who puts more effort into the stage visuals too?

The Dieter-directed "Virtual Concert" DVD that came with Touch Yello is pretty great too, if you don't mind the cheap looking CGI effects. (Which I'm willing to forgive because the budget must've been fairly small.) The bit where they place those white cutout instruments seen in the album art is fab!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTJmYEhn8PU

normally when i listen to 'stella' i skip 'oh yeah' cos, well, you know.
but tonight i let it play out.
it really is a mad weird track to have ever become a signature track.

one of the weirdest pop hits ever ?

13 minutes of 'the race'.
still brilliant.

always!

i went to the Berlin gig mentioned above (4 years ago). Some of it was excellent but overall it was a bit underwhelming sadly.

did anyone bother with the album they put out last year?

joe muggs said it was one of the best sounding albums of the year.
just a shame re the crap cover art.
and yes, i am that shallow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2F0rg8LE_c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YybmWiEzrs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rECR4wVCMQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRo1cHlgIqk