Yimino

Circuit Boards Gone Beautiful

Yimino are three. Two London-based makers of music, Henry Law and Gerald Chadwyck-Healy plus one image imaginer by the name of Stuart Sinclair.

Although formerly but briefly known as Tiny Desk Unit, the current entity known as Yimino coalesced from a long-term, band based partnership of almost a decade prior around 2001. An ‘Untitled’ single and an album called -wait for it – ‘The evolution of Bulbuss and The Polymorphic nightmare’ resulted, commanding the approval of a Mr Peel who promptly flew their flag on his airwaves.

lush synthetics, sticking,skittery circuits and deep breaths..

In 2004 Yimino went live, supporting those black dogs, Plaid, at the wonderful ether Festival at the South Bank Centre, london, and showcased the occular element of the project under Sinclair’s visual acuity,serving to lift the duo’s identity from behind the laptop and into new realms.

The current album, ‘autonoe Vora’, is their third body of work but a first on their label ominim stretching itself comfortably to twelve tracks, three of which are accompanied by “videos” from their third member. although easily plonked in the cerebral electronica class with special kids, luke Vibert, Tom Jenkinson, Mike Paradinas and the eoin brothers, the Yimino boys have managed to find themselves a

quiet corner to work on their projects without copying off the other lads. Although Henry confirms the obvious influences, “These guys had for me a mystery behind them and what appeared to be a celebration of music without any hint of ego.” Yimino cite a broader stroke of their musical pen, a deeper well on which to draw…“Bands (such) as AC/DC, Smashing Pumpkins, The Deftones, The Stone Roses, De la Soul, Grand Master Flash and The Furious Five, Frankie knuckles, Fallout and a Guy Called Gerald. We’ve learned a huge amount about making music from listening to these guys but more about how to conduct yourself as a musician both in and out of the studio.”

Though quite ambitious in its scope, ‘autonoe Vora’ manages to avoid that well-overdone bedroom studio sound through Henry and Gerald’s adept handling: “Our favourite part of the production process is the construction of our synth, kit and sample banks by spending long nights recording anything from porno dialogue through to our mates, usually ending up with some really interesting segments of audio. We had to develop a way of producing our tracks with whatever we could get our hands on and as circumstances haven’t changed dramatically since then; we’re still doing the same.”

Sublime, ethereal and quite beautiful to boot

Highlights of the album, whose range is far wider than one might expect, include the single release ‘Doe’ (replete with a loving two-stepped Plaid remix), which skips lightly over a gruff sonic bedrock and kicks at the grey clouds with rather positive, childlike abandon, ‘Miagranov’ sounding like space shuttle databanks dreaming, its narco-layers of lush synthetics all drip-dropped over ticking, skittery circuits and the deep breaths of end-tracks ‘Moflek’ and ‘Desume’, sublime, ethereal and quite, quite beautiful to boot. All in all it’s a set of tracks that slips itself into the “serious” electronica canon with ease. add it to yours.

www.ClashMusic.com/yimino

-
Join the Clash mailing list for up to the minute music, fashion and film news.