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Musical busybody Jon Atwood is back with the
latest album for his Yellow6 project. I have
been listening to Yellow6 records off and on
for most of this century. He releases a LOT of
music, and quite frankly it is overwhelming
trying to keep up with it all. I mean, just
look at the Yellow 6 Bandcamp page: there are,
as of this writing, 81 different releases
listed there.
Whew.
You could probably listed to nothing but
Yellow6, nonstop, for a few weeks!
And Yellow6 seems to have a pretty consistent
quality, for what it is. That is to say that
Atwood makes a sort of ambient music that at
times seems post-rockish and at other times is
more droning. It is generally mellow, made
primarily of effected guitar in layers.
However, if you do not enjoy this kind of
music, I would think that you would find the
various Yellow6 records to be too samey. That
is, he has defined a narrow range for this
act, and within it he explores vigorously and
copiously, but the music does not vary all
that much.
Sometimes It Seems Too Easy, Sometimes
It's Just So Hard is his latest
record. There are nine tacks on this album,
and I find three of them noteworthy. None are
bad, but they do sort of blend into the
general post-rock drone thing that Yellow6
does. These three are the ones I enjoy most
out of this collection.
The Waters Rise But We're Still Afloat
has a nice summery feel. There is a sawing
sound like strings, a drum machine tapping,
and layers of guitar chiming. Nice, relaxing,
spacious. He adds a grinding guitar layer over
it all in the middle, which is really nice.
The End is Near moves at a pace that
is ominous, and others ponderous. There is a
chiming guitar in one layer along a deeper
rumbling layer, some chugging drums, and at
times bluesy bent notes. There is a vaguely
western feel here, the bluesy guitar close to
pedal steel in tone, and this song is not too
dissimilar to what My Education were doing,
only a little less dense than that band.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, I also
really like PVC2, which is a more
minimal tune from Yellow6. The song is just a
few simple guitar layers and some light drums.
Very nice and calm.
So if you like what Yellow6 has been doing,
please know that he is still doing it. Often.
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