Yumi And The Weather – Some Days: EP Review

By John Barlass on 9th December 2020 • ( Leave a comment )

Brighton 80s revivalists Yumi And The Weather bring a ray of sunshine to our gloomy times

Release Date: 4^th December 2020

Formats: CD / Download

Yumi And The Weather is the brainchild of Brighton’s Ruby Taylor. Although YATW is essentially a solo project, alongside Ruby on guitar and vocals, the current band line up features Anthony Keegan on bass and William Woodfine on drums – the guys coming on board for live performance. Her quoted influences include A-ha, Dire Straits and Secret Service and the sound is refreshing, escapist and pure 80s. Arriving on the scene in 2013 with the All We Can EP, the eponymous debut album hit the racks in 2018. This new EP is released as a taster for their second album which is scheduled for release in 2021.

Some Days is yet another of those projects that have been conceived and realized during lockdown and further emphasizes the point that At The Barrier makes in our review of 2020. That the year’s forced isolation has, at least, caused lots of imaginative and enjoyable music to be created!

Ruby has written all the songs on this short collection and, whilst the 80s sound is all-pervading, there’s actually quite a variation in underlying styles to enjoy here. The band’s A-ha influence comes across loud and clear on opening track, No More, with copious swirling synths, upfront drum beats and echo-y, unsettling vocals. The effect is slightly otherworldly, but the band’s attention to 80s detail keeps the song anchored and the lasting impression is retrospective rather than futuristic.

Guitars feature more prominently on the second track, The More I Hear The Less I Believe, where the sound leans more towards Joy Division, or even The Lighting Seeds, and the song is driven along by an enjoyable, compulsive riff. For Just The One Thing, the clock is turned back even further and the band successfully achieves a mid-sixties R&B groove – an effect that’s added to by the interesting scratchy/distant production. I Will Never Know brings us back to the 80s. The song’s rapid-fire double-beat drum pattern and pulsing synth provide a tight backing to the light, poppy vocal and the song is topped off by a splendid, almost countrified guitar solo.

Final track, What Will Become Of The Wishing Well, has already received some significant levels of airplay – it was recently chosen by Radio X DJ John Kennedy as his ‘X-Posure Hot One’ and it brings the EP full circle, back to the full-synth A-ha sound.

Some Days is a highly enjoyable EP. A happy, carefree interlude in difficult times and truly whets the appetite for the forthcoming album.

Watch the video for What Will Become of the Wishing Well, from the album, here: