A Yello album is like a magical mystery tour. We may know where the journey starts but we have no idea where it will end. Their latest, “Point”, is no different.

Dieter Meier and Boris Blank could have sprung from the drawing board of Tin Tin-inventor Hergé. One, madcap sound professor Blank, dreams up a ceaseless stream of music which plunges the other, globetrotting gentleman adventurer Meier, into a frenzy of Dadaist story-telling. One, Blank, is happiest alone in the studio with his music. The other, Meier, is a citizen of the world who rarely stands still long enough to say hello to his shadow. Meier and Blank have made music together for forty years. In all this time they have not grown a day older or – heaven forbid! – a jot more sensible.

„Point“ was created in exactly the same way as the previous thirteen Yello albums and hits like „Oh Yeah“, „The Race“ or „The Rhythm Divine“. „I like to compare our music with paintings“, says Blank. “I constantly paint new sound worlds in the studio.” Drawing from a library of countless beats, melody fragments and instrumental parts, Blank arranges and rearranges these in ever subtler combinations. “Once I have collected sixty or seventy new tracks, I ask myself: which of these should we send to the exhibition? Which of these would go nicely together on an album?”

“When Boris is immersed in his music, he is like a kid in a sandpit”, reports Meier affectionately. “I’ve developed a dozen tricks to enter the studio without making him jump out of his skin.” Once a selection of tracks is made, Meier settles down with his ancient Hermes “Baby” typewriter and begins to rattle out an associative flow of words. “The typewriter is an erotic tool”, he says. “It is the act of typing that pulls me into the life of the song.”

Their last album, “Toy”, sounded unusually “cosmic”. Now, Yello have returned to earth. The joyous swing and nonsensical wit of “Waba Duba” sets the tone and, like “Peter Strong”, carries an echo of the early days of “You Gotta Say Yes to Another Excess”. “Arthur Spark“ performs the typically Yello-esque circus trick of blending absurd words with irresistible dance beats and a feeling of wistful longing. „Big Boy’s Blues“ is a mutant blues with Meier in Leonard Cohen-mood. „Hot Pan“ evokes, and subverts, old Spaghetti Western memories. „Rush for Joe“ serves up a glorious trombone solo. Finally, there is the eerily beautiful “Siren Singing” which, according to Chinese guest singer Fifi Rong, is about “unconditional love to ease the suffering of mankind”. Yello ideas, like sparks, fly off in all directions. And yet, they are all unmistakably part of the same painting.

Tracklist

TBC

Soundwave