Yellow6 :: Disappear Here & Bootleg #2

Although not strictly speaking an electronic musician, Jon Attwood (aka Yellow6) uses digital techniques to layer and process electric guitar drones and effects alongside keyboards and beats to create hauntingly beautiful textural works. Presented here is his latest album, Disappear Here, on Make Mine Music and a self-released live CDR entitled Bootleg #2. While Make Mine Music is co-founded by Attwood along with like-minded musicians such as Epic45, Portal and Avrocar, he continues to appear on a wide range of compilations and labels, often releasing rarities and live material direct to his fans on CDR through his website.

Disappear Here is Attwood’s latest full length offering and features 11 tracks opening and closing with “Piano Song”, a simple yet haunting tune that is well suited to the purpose. Disappear Here illustrates Attwood’s skill in creating absorbing and soothing ambience by utilising layered textual guitar drones with steadily paced drum loops and the occasional slow piano accompaniment. Compare for example the slow enveloping ambience of “Cycle” with the gentle acoustic glitchiness of “Threefold”; both are equally emotive in different ways with “Threefold” portraying an almost anxious reflective mood as opposed to the immersive qualities of “Cycle”. Similarly, “Painting Shadows” presents a doleful and quite tense mood of quiet contemplation, the heartbeat like beat adding to the tense anxiety of the subject. In contrast, “Made of Glass” is more uplifting and optimistic, utilising a more rhythmic beat along with guitar and piano portraying a more positive almost cinematic mood. “Interstate” opens with a subtle dub reggae bassline low in the mix that progresses to give the impression of hi-speed travel by introducing a rhythmic percussive beat at around the halfway point.

Shortly before the release of Disappear Here Attwood released another in an occasional series of CDRs, this time recorded live at The Talbot Hotel in Stoke-On-Trent, UK on 12th November 2002. Presented as a numbered and swatched edition of just 100 copies the CDR is encased in a yellow spray painted clear clamshell case with a printed translucent insert. Watched by a small but attentive audience, Attwood carries his observers away on a flowing textural wave of drifting ambience backed by discrete rhythmic beats and the occasional piano melody. Each track sits together beautifully and melds into one long voyage of trance-inducing tranquillity, broken only by a burst of frantic noise from Attwood himself during “Threefold”.

Attwood has an excellent ability to portray subtle shifts in mood whilst maintaining an absorbing and captivating style. Criminally under-rated, Attwood’s brand of ambience has a dedicated core of followers but he deserves wider recognition for his talents. Bootleg #2 in particular is worthy of further attention.