I reviewed Yellow Cafe’s EP ‘Soap Bubble’ a while back and the easiest way of reviewing this would be to say ‘Yellow Cafe do it again this is just beautiful and wonderful’. But that’s a lazy reviewer’s approach (Too true, we’ll have none of that – Ed) so let’s do something more than that.
Although, having said that, reviewing ‘Flight’ that way would make some sort of sense, a minimalistic review for what is about the sparsest thing I’ve heard in a long time. At first listen it seems to be just voice and, a rhythm track, a keyboard line, doing that slow dubby thing that Yellow Cafe do. But listen again, and then again and you start to hear these extra things – a lovely backing vocal, this clicking sound that sometimes happens. Yellow Cafe do minimal in the most beautiful way
And what this doesn’t do is to tell you that that voice, Bella’s voice, is just the loveliest thing. She sings in this simple, completely non-flashy way but it conveys emotion and meaning. Her voice is intimate, that’s the only way I can think of describing it. The sounds, the music, just complement that, they just reinforce that intimacy.
And I just have to tell you that I listened to this just before I headed out to review some bands in Leeds and it stayed with me, in the brief moments of quiet at the gig and periods where I was travelling to and from the venue I heard it in my head. Not in an ear-wormy kind of way, but almost as a calmness. It does that to you, it kind of invades your head.
And for those people who read my review of ‘Soap Bubble’ I still have no idea what alt-pop is. But when something is as wonderful and beautiful as this that seems to be unimportant.
