space sound: Harmless Melodies, by Yellow Days (LP)
striking melodies and a spectacular voice come from Manchester
Oh don't you see it now?
I'm staying for a little while
Yellow Days is the project ofGeorge Van Den Broek, from Manchester.
Harmless Melodies is an album released in 2016, when Van Den Broek was 17 years old, on the Good Years Music label.
And here lies the first particular note: it doesn't seem to be a young, inexperienced, raw record.
It doesn't have the usual characteristics of a debut work.
Intro begins with a recording of a BBC podcast held by Donald Winnicott, English paediatrician and psychoanalyst, in 1964. At the end comes Van Den Broek's voice, rough, almost broken.
It won't be the only time.
Your Hand Holding Mine follows, with Van Den Broek speaking to someone he knows has suffered, who he knows has felt "blue". And his hands are ready to hold theirs, always.
The chorus is a repetition of this vision, and his voice repeats "Oh, holding mine" with this scratchy voice, almost a voice from another time.
A Little While begins almost psychedelic, then a sweet guitar riff and a Bukowski quote open to a straight beat and a vocal performance by Van Den Broek unmatched in the entire album.
The chorus is spectacular, and we'd gladly "stay for a little while" to listen to it.
Because after all, we told ourselves that "This is just you and I".
Interlude (It's alright) begins by replicating that elevator music just before the start of a live streaming, but immediately becomes more complicated, varied, between the drums, Van Den Broek's voice, the bass. An excellent interlude. (It's alright).
Gap in the Clouds disproves my statement about the vocal performance of Your Hand Holding Mine: here we're on the same level, maybe even a bit above.
It talks about finding yourself observing the sky and seeing only clouds, and then meeting someone who thins out a couple and lets some light filter through, and your heart is no longer cold, it warms up, and you go back to really looking.
The distinctive trait of these songs is the incredible way they transition from verses to choruses, each one better than the last.
People shows the artist's vocal range, who displays an incredible voice, and once again here the chorus is a spectacle when it arrives.
It's a conversation between Mama and George, and an awakening to how the world works, and how human beings work.
Here and there are scattered small guitar solos that show all the artist's style, who seems impossible to have that age.
Outro (Baked in the Sunshine) is an August morning by the pool, or an early May afternoon, when the heat mitigated by the weather or the water shows you only the positive side of being surrounded by sunlight. This is the feeling that Van Den Broek gives, especially in the final part, which seems like the disc's final soundtrack, as well as being its last song.
A crazy debut album, for an artist who makes his voice an instrument, but doesn't disdain playing excellent incredible arrangements.
We are all just people just runnin' 'round […]
Don't let it get you down
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See you next time!