UK project YELLOW6 has been an ongoing venture for almost 20 years by now, and is the creative vehicle of composer and musician Jon Attwood. He’s fast closing in on 100 releases all and sundry from what I understand, although the number of official full length albums is a bit more manageable and averaging at around one per year if I have managed to track down the essential information on this productive artist. “merry6mas2014” dates back to the Christmas season of 2014, and was released through US label Silber Records.
In the extensive notes to be found online for this production, Attwood explains and expands upon the background of the various compositions that makes out this album, which basically is an odds and ends compilation of material that for some reason or other didn’t fit into other projects, creations recorded and forgotten about, as well as half an hour of live footage from one of the concerts he held in 2014. Normally such compilations is a bit of a hit and miss affair, but in the case of the kind of music Attwood creates this isn’t that much of an issue really.
The music of Yellow6 is one that can probably be best described as a lo-fi, ambient take on post rock, where the border between what can be described as post rock and what is better defined as drones is one that remains ambiguous. Gentle, plucked guitars with resonating details and an echoing presence are paired off with firmer plucked guitar layers, occasionally with a darker toned undercurrent that may or may nit be the product of a bass guitar, and in most cases some kind of drone will hover in the distance or a fluctuating, ethereal post rock style textured instrument pattern will be a delicate presence on top. Slow moving, delicate and fragile landscapes are carefully explored, and the material as such is rather uniform. The differences between the various creations are subtle, and this isn’t the kind of music that will stick to your mind and make you hum along or tap your feet. These are nuanced, atmospheric laden journeys, dreamladen constructions enabling the heart, soul and mind to be aware of actually existing in a world where most people are pushed to the limits in others and their own demands to produce, to create, to use and to be seen. One might describe this as music that inspires to inwards oriented reflection, melodic journeys enabling a sense of self-awareness. Not in a smooth, soft, Hollywood-glitzy new age kind of manner, although there are similarities to new age music with the mainly ambient moods explored, but these landscapes are more rugged, invoking the thoughts and feel of a light English spring drizzle, soft rain under grey skies at the seashore, or the nippy breeze over the Yorkshire moors at the start of the fall season.
The music of Yellow6 isn’t one that will be universally appealing, nor ever reach a broad audience I suspect. But those fond of ambient music, dreamladen atmospheres and ethereal instrument textures compiled in an unpolished yet delicate manner, are fascinated by individual tonal journeys where the differences between then are subtle and nuanced and intrigued by such excursions done in more of a lo-fi and rugged manner should contemplate visiting the universe of Yellow6.
My rating: 70/100
