Yol - closing and opening

 Released: July 18

Yol is one of my favorite “difficult listening” artists. Everything he makes is abrasive and enjoyable to a certain masochistic degree, but it is always also quite innovative in its approach. Closing and opening, a two piece noise experience, is no exception. He uses a strange assortment of sound sources, including some rather unusual field recordings and a bizarre scraping instrument that has been amplified far beyond normal capabilities for the first half of the album. This is, as always, in combination with his utterly bizarre vocal recitiations - his locking on to unwieldy and nonsensical utterances that stutter and stop and go erratically. Screaming about being eaten by wolves is better than being eaten by dogs, juxtaposed against the soft twittering of birds in the forest definitely feels very unsafe, but curiously captivating as well. 

The second half of the album feels even more chaotic as a new set of recitations occurs, this time amounting a seemingly random listing of objects and their descriptors. This is naturally combined with the sound of a children’s music box playing out an eerie elegy while pots and pans are slammed about with reckless abandon. If you’re unfamiliar with his work, I will warn you that it is quite difficult to wrap your head around, but I would recommend you don’t try. Just allow yourself to be sucked into the madness for about half an hour and truly feel it. It is honestly perspective shifting, just in unpredictable ways.