YURA YURA

The debut album of Frenchman Grégory Yura, the name is actually Japanese for "swaying vibration". Or how your own name can have meaning in another language. Part of this project is also the dancer/choreographer Macha Mélanie and both have made a few notable shows... the music can best be described as minimal, rudimentary, straightforward and exciting rhythmic industrial. Bands like Sonar, Greyhound or even Esplendor Geometrico are never far away so you can imagine this stuff is going to make you move.

But there is also an ambient, ethereal undertone so these songs can also bring you into a trance. Like you would skip half the build-up of an Orphx song and then multiply it a few times... Needless to say I want to see this guy do his thing @ Hands or Maschinenfest... A few other notable songs that think outside the box: "Holokine" has some Winterkälte moments, "I wanna Twist" is a weird electro stomper that could've come from Hypnoskull and "Sixty Nine" has eerie high pitched X-files strings as base. Maybe that diversity is what makes this album strangely uplifting, weird for oppressive beat driven music...

So thankfully, not your average 75 minute whirlwind of distorted beats without clear goal, something I've encountered a bit too much lately. Included through YouTube is one of the more up-tempo songs, "Wolf". A good debut, check it out!

Chris KONINGS
03/01/2014