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LP
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KK 135LP
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Through the folded sky to America Ten albums in three years. That's still the cosmic mission of the Berlin post-kraut trio Yelka with Daniel Meteo, Christian Obermaier, and the namesake Yelka Wehmeier. With the album For, there was a label change. After releasing three albums in 2023 with Maurice Summen, head of Fun In The Church they passed the label responsibilities to Karaoke Kalk. The trio's fourth album was also created with Arne Berger at Popschutz Studio, and the team is definitely well-rehearsed. Instead of recording the planned tracks, the band decided to improvise the session, and all tracks, except for the krauty Doors cover "The Crystal Ship," were created in five days in the studio, mostly on the first or second take, but with significantly more overdubs -- keyboards, backing vocals, second and third guitars, percussion, and piano. The sound of For has become warmer, and the album begins with a kind of '60s-Kinks feeling. Overall, the current record has become much more exuberant. In the first instrumental of the album "Is this enough?," the band reverse tracks like Jimi Hendrix in his Electric Ladyland, and listeners dive deeper and deeper into the endless sky until Yelka finally arrive on newly trodden sound paths with "MM" to their beginnings on their debut album Nowhere Jive. At the popular intersection of post-rock and jazz, where guest singer Bela Hagel also likes to linger for a moment. The guitars sound like a desert, and the reverb reminds us of the expansive space in the opening track "Skies." "Do you wanna dance?" Yelka Wehmeier finally asks, while a chorus in the best Sun Ra manner mantra-like repeats "Cold dogs, cool cats." The whole band sings. Everything sounds good.
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