Melodious dreamscapes, sumptuous harmonies and plush instrumentation: it all adds up to an exhilarating listening experience.  Polaris, the new album from Yani Martinelli is a triumph.

Release Date:  6^th December 2024

Label: Self Release

Formats: CD / Digital

HER BEST YET?

Polaris is the eighth album from songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and master melodist Yani Martinelli and, I strongly suspect, it’s her best yet.

Born in Caracas, Venezuela, and now resident in Madrid, Yani Martinelli grabbed her first dose of attention as long ago as 2010, when her debut EP, Nonna in the Garden, started to turn the heads of those on the look out for something different and lasting.  A full-length album, Bubble Station, followed in 2012 and her most recent album, Sweet Silence, arrived in 2021.  Along the way, Yani has earned the reputation of ‘Master Melodist’ – a reputation that is richly deserved and, yet, there’s still more to this fascinating lady.  Alongside her compositional and recording work, she still manages to find time to teach music and to indulge her other special passion – the protection, rescue and care of feral cats.  Yani Martinelli is MY kind of girl.

WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM A FRIEND…

For Polaris, Yani has managed to secure the services of High Llamas leader, Sean O’Hagan, who has worked on the arrangements – including the string, brass, woodwind and sumptuous vocal harmonies – that bring such vivid colour to Yani’s signature cuatro, Spanish guitar and piano.  The result is a sound that is deep, rich and thoroughly, thoroughly satisfying.  In truth, Yani and Sean are old buddies, and have been so since Yani first drew Sean into her orbit by sending him, in 2011, one of several covers that she’d recorded of High Llamas material – probably her version of Sailing Bells, I’d imagine…

Yani is passionate about her work, as she demonstrates when she says: “I believe in the sincerity of my music.  Music is sacred.  My songs are something beyond myself.  Every song I write, I sing it as a prayer.”  The songs for Polaris have been inspired by Yani’s love of nature, the environment and spirituality and those feelings have manifested themselves in a collection of songs that combine the sunshine psychedelia and charming naivety of the late 60s with the pulsing rhythms of Latin America. 

If melodicism and whimsy are your thing, then you’ll find that Polaris is the equal of such gems as Astral Weeks and Surf’s Up.  And, yes, there is a strong late-period Beach Boys feel to much of Polaris and, if you search a little harder, you’ll also find a few Beatle references and sounds from the Stackridge stable but, all told, this is music from the fertile mind of Yani Martinelli.

WELCOME TO DREAMLAND

Joy is, overwhelmingly, the emotion that is generated by Polaris – that’s clear from the opening bars of Life in a Day, the song that gets Polaris underway.  It’s a pastoral song with roots firmly planted in the halcyon years of the late 60s.  Indeed, a casual listener could believe that it’s a lost track from The Zombies’ Odessey and Oracle.  And that same period feel is retained for When I was a Tree.  The inspiration for the song came from a micro-biologist and sometime-lyricist friend of Yani’s and a video he made concerning the process of converting seaweed into beer.  Yani keeps up a chugging rhythm with her cuatro and the “Boop boop” backing vocals provide another anchor to the 60s.

We take our first steps into dreamland with Bruna Story, another song with a strong pastoral feel.  The cuatro and guitar backing is simple but rich, the flute soars and flutters and the dreamy middle section is – well… – dreamlike!  And, if it’s dreams that you’re after, then stick around for Florence, a tune that will take you, the listener, wherever you want to go.  An easy, jazzy theme with more of those harmony vocals and splashes of sax and clarinet washes back and forth like a gentle tide, leaving the listener with no choice, other than to lie back and dream.  And, when the going gets really spacy, then you know that you’ve arrived – at wherever it is that you wanted to go.

Named after a beautiful Spanish butterfly, Zerynthia Rumina is a delightful song that, more than any other song on the album, reminds me of Stackridge, at their most endearingly whimsical – and the flurries of flute replicate the butterfly’s flight to a ‘T.’

LATIN RHYTHMS

The title means “Blue Beach,” and the wonderful Praia Azul is, possibly, my favourite track on the album.  It starts life as another invitation to lie back, dream, and to let the lazy, summery, harmonies wash over you until, by way of surprise, the song breaks out into a cool, vibrant Bossa Nova, full of gorgeous flute, sax and Latin rhythms, guaranteed to shake you out of your reverie and lift you out onto the dancefloor to shuffle and shake your stuff.  And, now that the Latin rhythms have struck up, Yani has made the wise decision to stick with them, albeit at a slower pace, for the warm, exotic, Night Time Gecko.  It’s a song that carries the listener off to a steamy Caribbean paradise – as the song’s refrain says: “Thank you for the life, and the lovely summer nights!”

A potent mix of guitars, harmony vocals and a real-life magic flute replicate the sparrow’s flight in the slow, summer-flavoured Sparrow’s March, before the slow-building Navy Blue takes us on a trip down Abbey Road and into Beatle territory.  But it’s the spirit of The Beach Boys, rather than the Fab Four, that inhabits the Hawaiian strains of K’ou Hoku; ukuleles and slide guitar provide the Hawaiian sounds whilst the harmony vocals give a nod towards Brian, Mike, Dennis and Co.

AN EXHILARATING LISTENING EXPERIENCE

The Beach Boys mood is retained for The Guide, a short piano and woodwind piece, before we retreat back to dreamland for the sparkly Polaris, the album’s title track.  And, speaking of sparkling, Yani visits the high end of her piano keyboard to provide the glittering highlights to the magical, engaging Pegasus.  Bass and drums provide a backing that is heavier here than at any other point on the album, as the dream is brought – almost – to its end by Yani’s parting message: “When the day slowly ends, Luna stays.”

If you think it’s all over… It isn’t yet.  Not quite.  This charming, engaging and thoroughly captivating album is brought to a gentle close with Dawn and Shore, a soothing blend of windchimes and birdsong, a final burst of those lush vocal harmonies and Yani’s parting shot: a single, album-ending strum of her cuatro.

Polaris is an exhilarating listening experience.  A triumph.

Watch the official video to K’ou Hoku – a track from the album – here:

Yani Martinelli online: Official Website / Facebook / Instagram / YouTube / Bandcamp

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