Yatsura
!Pulpo!
Primary Recordings, 72 Spring Street 10th Floor,
New York NY 10012
Release Date: 1997
If you always feel left out of those heated Oasis vs. Blur debates because you really don't care for either of them, then Yatsura might just be for you. Their recipe for Brit-pop (well, UK pop -- they're Scottish) involves marinating catchy tunes in every noisy juice in the kitchen and then funneling them through a fuzz box the size of Noel's ego.
Yatsura has obviously kept one ear tuned to the noises coming from the other side of the Atlantic, packing their songs to the gills with Amer-indie sensibilities. The scraping guitar on "Mirimar" could easily be a Sonic Youth sample, and the quieter moments of songs like "Revir" and "Got the Sun" sound an awful lot like Bedhead. Steven Malkmus even gets a name-check on "Kozee Heart." Sure, they can execute a great melody, but they realize they'll sound a hell of a lot cooler if they slip outta tune every now and then. They don't completely avoid Brit-brattiness, but its more snotty punk then whiny popster.
!Pulpo! is a collection of the UK singles and b-sides Yatsura has recorded since its 1996 debut, We Are Yatsura. And there are indeed some brilliant singles here -- "Fake Fur" is as deliciously noisy as anything that's come out of Chapel Hill in the past year. Surprisingly (for a singles comp, at least), there aren't really any throwaway tracks and the thing works quite well as a complete record.
So the next time your roommates get into one of their Liam-could-kick-Damon's-ass screaming matches, throw on !Pulpo! and crank it. It's sure to drown them out.
-- Jon Carson
carson@outersound.com
