Formed in the early 1980s, the UK's
O Yuki Conjugate were a gritty antidote to "Music for Airports" ambient. Using bells, bowls, river rocks, and parts of trees as percussion instruments, OYC pioneered what some have called "dirty ambient" or "organic ambient" music. I first heard OYC in a Greenville, SC, indie record store on a buying trip with some friends from Charlotte in 1990. The store was playing a vinyl copy of "Into Dark Water," which they were selling for $45. I couldn't afford that, but I plunked down $30 for a copy of their first U.S. release on Projekt called "Peyote," my favorite track of which soon became, and still is, "Dusk, Dead Heart."OYC's sound was different from the electronic music I had been digging up to that point. I had been delving into a lot of Tangerine Dream, Wire, and Kraftwerk, which had roots in rock and pop and contained melody. Listening to that music was more like taking your mind on a sonic journey, usually driven by a guy with his foot pressed firmly on the gas most of the way. I had also been devouring a lot of Brian Eno, Klaus Schulze and David Sylvian. Except for Sylvian, a lot of that type of electronic music was more blissful, and the difference between those artists and OYC was that Eno, et. al had a very clean, sterile feel. Listening to Eno was exactly like walking through a sterile airport - it was an escape hatch for your mind, and the journey you took was one in a perfectly clean, perfectly perfect space. OYC gives one no such comfort. Listening to OYC keeps the mind active, aware, and sometimes, a little fearful. OYC is more about primal instincts. Animals. Rivers, forests, probably black ones; journeys at night, maybe ones in which you are being chased. Or hunted. The jungle might be electronic, but it certainly isn't clean or pretty. It's got grit. You can hear it crackle under your feet and in your hair. Through OYC I delved into all the Projekt artists, and they led me to people like Dead Can Dance, Mickey Hart, Baka Beyond, Fata Morgana, and other world musicians along the way. So taking those dark journeys did not bode me ill. For the longest time, ever, I've felt like I was the only human being in the world listening to O Yuki Conjugate, and, as evidenced by their record sales, I had reason to feel that way. I think you could probably fit all the OYC fans into a club and not sweat. Also, I think they kind of liked it that way. The band has gone through
several incarnations in personnel as well. I was thrilled about a year and a half ago when their old releases started showing up on eMusic and I could finally get them all. I feasted on all the darkness I could handle. But, after a very, very, very long hiatus, last year, in a Hollywood movie of all places, I heard them come back. The second I heard the traces of the track, in "Lucky Number Slevin," I knew it was them. After the movie I said to my husband, "I heard O Yuki Conjugate." Of course, he said, "conjugate what?"That track, which I can't post because of DRM restrictions, was called "In Dreams, Perhaps". The new release from O Yuki, The Euphoria of Disobedience, does not disappoint.
If you are a fan of Amon Tobin, you will find a lot to like in OYC, I promise. But be warned. Listening to O Yuki Conjugate might just be like venturing to those areas on those ancient maps that said "there be dragons." On their website you can hear more samples of their new album.
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