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Band of the Week: Yello

Resident sound-nerd Tom Killingbeck thumbs through reams of musty vinyl so you don’t have to. Here are his weekly recommendations…

Monday 17 January 2011

#11: Yello

Who: Dieter Meier, Boris Blank, Carlos Perón.

When: 1980’s.

Where: Switzerland.

Why: Swiss electro-pop pioneers Yello’s back-story reads like a Wes Anderson film that never got past pre-production. In the late 70’s, tech-nerds Boris Blank and Carlos Perón began an electronic music project with their knowledge of sampling and tape loops, inspired by the continental programming experiments of replicants like Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk. They soon realised they need a singer, so hired Dieter Meier, a millionaire industrialist as well as a conceptual artist, filmmaker, professional poker player, wine-maker and sometime golfer for the Swiss national team. Really. Together, the three set about putting together perhaps the most astonishingly brilliant synth-pop debut of all time, Solid Pleasure.

The album stood head and shoulders above the crowds of synthesizer wielding thralls to Kraftwerk, and confidently advertised the group’s idiosyncrasy and versatility. Along with electronic interpretations of various exotic styles – ‘Downtown Samba’ and ‘Coast to Polka’ for example, there were bona fide pop hits in the form of the tongue twisting, driving ‘Bostich’. They even found time to include a three-piece electronic suite of ambient industrial music. But Solid Pleasure was only the start. The band, unsatisfied with helping to define synth-pop, also broke new ground in music video production. 1981’s single ‘Pinball Cha Cha’ was, in 1985, selected for inclusion in Museum of Modern Art’s Music Video Exhibition. Later music videos, often directed by Meier, were visually arresting enough to ensure regular play on the http://nouse.co.uk/2011/01/17/32704 Archived 11 Dec 2018 01:08:17 Nouse Web Archives Band of the Week: Yello Page 2 of 3 burgeoning MTV.

Perón having left in 1983 to attempt a solo career, it was in 1985 that the now duo arrived at their breakthrough on record. Stella was a synth-pop masterpiece, easily outdoing better-known works by bands taking cues from Yello; Erasure or Depeche Mode for example. The band won well-deserved success with the single ‘Oh Yeah’, with its bizarrely appealing slowed down vocals appearing on the soundtrack to classic school ditching teen flick ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’. It seems incredible, that in this era of excessive sampling and song-rifling skulduggery, that Yello have managed to create every one of their otherworldly tracks from scratch. Blank is the quiet genius here, overshadowed by Meier’s unbelievable personality. He’s the source of all the band’s instrumentation, and over the years has apparently built up an original sample library of over 100,000 sounds. He’s the unsung hero of electronic music.

Influences: Kraftwerk, Brian Eno, Sparks, Tangerine Dream, The Residents.

Influenced: Derrick May, LCD Soundsystem, Moby, The Orb, Crystal Castles.

Sample Lyric: ‘She looked in my eyes and with a smile in her face she said / “Of course I’m lying. But I think I love you.”’

Which Record: Stella (Vertigo, 1985)

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