Yumi Zouma - Yoncalla

Yumi Zouma
Yoncalla
2016
Spotify

There is a slickness to everything that Yumi Zouma do that many bands out there would kill for. It is hard to believe that Yoncalla is the first feature length release from the group because it seems like their music has been in the zeitgeist for awhile now. This record is so effortless and smooth taking the best elements from Disco and dreampop and smashing them together into something interesting and special. Yumi Zouma actually had an album release party in Los Angeles and I got to see many of these tracks live. The problem however is Yumi Zouma don't sound like and don't perform like any other band. Their music is so light that no rocking out really occurs. The energy is constantly understated inviting you to feel rather than to enjoy. It is an odd experience and not all together a great one which is why when you listen to this album it is so odd that I was instantly enraptured. They are able to put these tunes down in the studio within a razor's edge of perfection, but falter when they actually have to perform it live. I was ready to go into this record and not like from my experience, but it is impossible, the album version is just to damn good. There are times when Christie Simpson's gentle voice gets a bit distracting, but for the most part it feels so natural and well placed that you simply do not want it to stop.

Sometimes dreampop can get mixed around with to much flowly sounds and looses a bit of it's reality, but Yumi Zouma find the answer to that in bringing in disco style percussion and bass lines like on "Yesterday". Instead of swaying Yumi Zouma actually get you dancing. The strange feeling that you get when listening to this record is that you feel that this music should have been done before, by someone else and though Yumi Zouma do borrow heavily from the 70s and 80s but their sound is so wholly their own that you simply don't really hear this music from anywhere else. Even their delivery on tracks like "Better When I'm By Your Side" which somewhat borrows from hip hop is super interesting. When you learned that while writing this album half the band was living in New York and the other half in New Zealand it makes the somewhat disconnected feel seem all the more real a la Postal Service. "Short Truth" is probably the riskiest track on the album, but it really really works and could be one of the best singles to come off Yoncalla. Really great stuff here and more than worth a listen, but if you have a chance to see them live you may want to wait a few years for them to really hone that craft.

8.0 out of 10