Sam West vocals Matt Isaac lead guitars Ian Anderson guitars/string arrangements Dave Brown bass/synths Feargus Brennan drums/percussion David Donaldson electronics/audio manipulation
yllwshrk are an amalgamation. Hailing from both sides of Hadrian’s Wall, they are more at home in classical concert halls than the Camden dive bars, and more accustomed to bows and mallets than the amps and synths of the alt-rock scene. Yet their debut album I AM ALADDIN seems to have found a way to bring these distinct worlds together.
This balancing of musical genres from drastically different philosophies and traditions is reflected in the album’s title: I AM ALADDIN references BlackRock Inc.’s Aladdin programme, which appears in Adam Curtis’ darkly compelling film HyperNormalisation as an example of how modern technocrats attempt to manage the chaos and complications of the real world. This unease with much of the modern world is explored throughout I AM ALADDIN, the tone and subject of the songs often taking inspiration from Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror or Frankie Boyle’s old Guardian columns.
However, the irony that part of yllwshrk’s lineup owes itself to a set of computer algorithms is not lost on the band. Vocalist Sam West responded to a long list of Gumtree adverts shortly after his arrival in London from Glasgow, and shortly afterwards found himself in a rehearsal room in less-than-familiar circumstances. “We had full scores of the music printed out, and instead of running the chorus a few times like I’m used to, it would be ‘lets take it from the upbeat into bar 66’ so there was quite a bit of adjusting to do.”
yllwshrk (clockwise from top left) Dave Brown, Ian Anderson, Feargus Brennan, Sam West, Matt Isaac \\ Photo: Iona Wolff
The core individual behind the yllwshrk concept is composer and guitarist Ian Anderson, who cites the likes of Mahler and Prokofiev as big influences amongst more contemporaries such as Björk and Radiohead. It was in fact working as a session viola player as part of the London Contemporary Orchestra on Radiohead’s latest album A Moon Shaped Pool that made Ian decided to approach the LCO to form the backbone of the album. It was also during a break in one of these A Moon Shaped Pool sessions that Ian asked LCO principal bassist Dave Brown to be a part of yllwshrk.
“Knowing the LCO so well I knew they would be perfect for the album. Their distinctively dark, unsettling sounds involve many unusual playing techniques that I knew would match and enhance our music. However it’s also always fun to shock people, so bringing in an entire twisted disco string score for them to play on our song Arsenik was fun. They’re more known for their unsettling Jed Kurzel film scores or their fantastically dark Spitfire texture library, so it was fun to watch the session morph into Saturday Night Fever.”
yllwshrk’s full compliment includes eclectic guitarist Matt Issac and drummer/percussionist Feargus Brennan, who bring drive and grit into such tracks as PUKI and Pyramids. They also bring to yllwshrk their vast personal collections of guitars, baritone guitars, pedals, and percussion instruments which appear throughout I AM ALADDIN. There’s a strangeness to the music, an implacable bizarreness to its quality which perfectly compliments the subject that the songs tackle. If someone wrote a musical based on Black Mirror you’d start to come close to what the yllwshrk concept is. It's a dark dive into our experiences of reality and the sheer chaos of its design. Songs such as opener Smudge attest to the pervasiveness of anxiety and isolation behind our carefully constructed social media personas, frozen online forever, while tracks like Arsenik offer a more Dr. Strangelove interpretation of the world.
yllwshrk members have appeared on albums such as Radiohead’s A Moon Shaped Pool, Frank Ocean’s Blonde, Actress’ LAGEOS, Thom Yorke’s Anima, and Foals’ Holy Fire as members of the London Contemporary Orchestra. They have performed live with artists such as Little Simz, Goldfrapp, Ry X, Eric Clapton, Deltron 3030, and Elbow, as well as regularly giving classical chamber music recitals across the UK and Europe, and performing and recording with many of the UK’s leading orchestras.
yllwshrk aren’t rock. They aren’t classical. They aren’t a series of algorithms either. They’re musical misfits who embrace the current blurring of genres and push that to the extreme. What other band uses tuning forks to create beats, has a saxophone hooked up to an amp so it can control feedback pitches, or chucks a vibrator into a Steinway piano just to see what happens?
yllwshrk’s stimulating debut album I AM ALADDIN is available on EOA Recordings, 16th October 2020.