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A rather brief recap of the pre ‘Autonoe Vora’ history surrounding Yimino would read thus. Duo Gerald Chadwyck-Healy and Henry Law form electro ambient outfit Tiny Desk Unit (not to be confused with the Washington DC based synth combo of the same name from the late 70’s who released ‘Naples’) only to change their name to Yimino upon the release of their album ‘the evolution of bulbuss and the polymorphic nightmare’ which incidentally receives overwhelming support from the late Mr Peel - no doubt attracted in the first instance by its irrefutable hippy / prog title. Buoyed by the praise it receives the duo hit the road, secure a residency at 93 Feet East wherein their head warping blend of audio and visual routines gets them noticed by Plaid who invite them to appear at the Ether Festival in 2004 (their 35 minute set will shortly appear as a download release ’QEH2004’ shortly). The following year sees them teaming up with Keith Elliot and plans are hatched to set up the Ominim imprint.
So with the dull and boring domestics done and fast forwarding three years on, the first fruits of the label finally get to see the light of day courtesy of Yimino’s ’Autonoe Vora’. In short a gloriously wide screen twelve track suite of terra forming glassily sculptured starry eyed signatures informed and operating on similar sonic frequencies and cerebral climes as the likes of old skool aural alchemists such as Banco de Gaia, Biosphere and FSOL while simultaneously free falling in the vapour trails of current esoteric explorers Biotron Shelf et al. That said ’Autonoe Vora’ finds Yimino’s chief reference marker being Plaid’s excellent ’greedy baby’ set from a year or two ago and that should come as no surprise given the close relationship between the two ensembles in fact Messrs Turner and Handley even appear between these grooves recalibrating ‘Doe’ to such glacially conceived euphoric states of retro techno grandeur that you’d be forgiven for thinking you’d been slipped a tab, knocked on the head, whipped back momentarily slap bang into the middle of the 90’s only to awake in an underground cavern of an ice mountain festooned with a fringe arranging psychedelic strobe effect laser show. But then it’s a trait of the album as a whole and the cause of valid complaint should you be a purist seeking an elusive advancement of technique in a generic medium whose forward thinking cutting edge reached saturation point towards the end of the last decade. Despite the hyperbole ’Autonoe Vera’ doesn’t really come close to pushing the envelope in any way shape or form.
However to its credit what it does provide for is a well heeled sumptuously streamlined journey of sound, melody in motion perhaps because one thing that cannot be refuted is the sheer elegance of artistry perpetuated by this duo as they shape shift through the elemental hybrids of the multi-faceted micro-verse of ambience, its such that each track opens at a given point and ends literally light years away from its original map reference. This amorphous palette of ever evolving sound constantly throws curveballs at the listener, what might first appear minimalist in stature assumes depth, body and lush clarity, something initially viewed as glitch like, monochrome and sparse becomes bathed in sheens of colour. The original template for ‘Doe’ opens as though a forlorn transmission from a distant dead star, a clinical coldness resting at its core, a cybernetic super intelligence seemingly at the point of some mechanical meltdown that without warning or hint sublimely blossoms into a snow globed slice of orbiting opulence caressed with lulling string swathes. Then there’s the drone-y BBC Radiophonic twittery of the stilled atmospherics that usher in ‘Dot’ - a dreamily lulling spectacle of celestial frailness dappled with lunatic dub motifs and fractured Oriental mirages that without a so much as a by your leave transforms into a playfully frisky and impish slice of lovelorn cuteness undercut by moments of schizoid crookedness a la Boards of Canada.
Elsewhere with its chuckling hiccups and skittish glitch toned funk accents the up-tempo ’Kelpy’ shuffles, dissipates and morphs across a spectrum of spatial textures kookily interspersed with ethnic montages that swiftly dissolve into milky apertures of Oceanic bliss grooves a la 808 State (those with a thing for Manchester’s finest will swoon to the parting ‘Ze-Ka’) to willowy chilled lunatic chatters while those of you much loving of those ominous Barry Gray end credits for UFO and various other 50’s b-movie sci-fi oddness (early Add N to X spring readily to mind) may do well to spend a moment surveying the tear stained landscapes of the fragile though sensitively engineered ’Mofleck’ as it flowers from the bleak to the bruised in a blurry eyed instant. Mind you all said and done we don’t mind admitting to being much in jaw dropped awe at the sweetly distressed 70’s styled celestial opines as envisaged on the hollowed gracefulness of ’Desumo’. For the more dream inclined space cadets among you.
www.ominim.com
Key tracks -
Desumo
Mofleck
Dot
MARK BARTON
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