By Christopher DeMarcus (Contributor) – Email
Print Edition: September 18, 2013
Yoav is back. The South African electro-acoustic singer-songwriter had strong MTV exposure in 2008 with his first album, Charmed and Strange. This was followed by a North American tour with Tori Amos, a second release (A Foolproof Escape Plan), and landing a song on the Sucker Punch soundtrack. His third release, Blood Vine, has more in common with his excellent first album; it is highly original and combines the two extremes of acoustic folk-blues and electronic dance music.
Most electronic artists use the stock sounds that come in their synthesizers. More elevated musicians dive deeper into their gear – instead of using stock presets, they use the bare-bones programming tools to sculpt their own sounds. Yoav’s use of samplers and synthesizers is on a higher plane. Most of the ‘electronic’ elements on his records are mashed up samples and loops he makes from slapping the strings and body of an acoustic guitar with his hands – he uses the guitar as a synthesizer. Think of Daft Punk using an acoustic guitar instead of a drum machine.
Blood Vine’s sound is innovative, but like all great albums, the songs matter most. Yoav is able to blend gentle and catchy melodic lines, pounding beats, harmonic guitar rhythms, solid song structures, and an as yet unheard electronic style into an intoxicating cocktail of sound. It’s not that Yoav is ahead of his time, so much as he is deeply connected with it; while most mainstream music projects seek to wrap the new in a retro package, Yoav is consistently in touch with the current ways of making music and shaping sound.
The single “Pale Imitation” is featured on YouTube; it’s worth watching. You can quickly understand the themes Blood Vine is reaching for, and the video shows how media lets us connect with memory, and what that might mean for how we live in the ever-present future. As hip as Yoav is, my bet is that Blood Vine will be timeless. “Shiver #7” has a classy, cinematic, James Bond quality. “Sign of Life” sums up how Yoav is a genre in and of himself, pumping trance-like rhythms fused into a bombastic industrial breakdown with a returning melody straight from the hard drive of a Eurodance music producer.
The album isn’t as happy as you might expect folk-electro sound to be – there’s plenty of blues here. Through all the technology, at the core Yoav has a bluesman mentality: street smarts searching for big answers to big questions. The lyrics of “Keep Calm Carry On” sum up the big problem of our time: “The devil in the details / the weaver of the dream / will wrap his word around you / but none of it is real.” Ultimately, this album is about the destructive power of illusions and creative power of dreams – our obsession with “Karaoke Superstars.”
Yoav is currently on tour in Europe, but promises to be back our way soon.
