Ol Beach aka Yellowire was born in London and moved to Switzerland at the age of ten. He was educated at L’Ecole Nouvellein Lausanne before joining the Montreux Jazz Conservatoire at 16, studying under Blue Note recording artist Thierry Lang. They recorded two albums for EMI, had number 1 tracks on iTunes in France and the UK, had a song featured on a top Brazilian soap opera, playing festivals including Womad, Beautiful days and the Montreux Jazz Festival. They also toured Europe with Starsailor and South Africa supporting Robbie Williams.
Yellowire formed in 2010 and have had a lot of success in such a small period of time, they have performed at HMV’s Next Big Thing, Isle of Wight Festival, Rock am Ring & Rock im Park (in Germany), Hard Rock Calling in Hyde Park, Latitude festival and will be playing Reading and Leeds festivals next weekend. The band’s first single ‘One Last Breath’ was play listed by Radio 2 in the UK and had international support with Radio play across Europe, to as far afield as Dubai.
On the back of this success the band just released their debut album ‘Machines On Fire’ on August 15th. Their latest single, also named ‘Machines On Fire’, has already had plays on Absolute, BBC Radio London and Radio 2. It will officially be released and available for download on the 15th August.
Yellowire and the critically acclaimed Jimmy Turrell have joined to make a one of a kind release with ‘Machines On Fire’. This latest release gives fans the chance to own a bespoke piece of art by Jimmy alongside the Yellowire album. The physical album ‘Machines On Fire’ will be a 2000 limited edition and includes a 24-page booklet, a 12-panel poster and a unique animation cell from the promo video for the band’s second single ‘Starlife’, signed by Yellowire’s Ol Beach and Jimmy Turrell.
The 10 track album has a familiar feel to it, being just under 40 minutes long it is easy to just have it playing in the background and forgetting that it is there. After the fourth or so listen, it clicked what it reminded me of another indie band, OneRepublic. I am sure that we all remember their major release “Apologize” with the one time producer turned singer Timberland. OneRepublics first album ‘Dreaming Out Loud’, was ground breaking in 2008, and it is very reminiscent of ‘Machines On Fire’.
The album is non offensive, it is the sort of thing that you could play in the car or would be in the background in a shop. It is nice. Is this ground breaking or inspiring? The answer would have to be no. All these sounds have been heard before, the voice is good, the instruments are well played, and the lyrics are nice. It is very easy to listen to the album repeatedly because it just blends into the background.
Their opening track ‘Star Life’ is fairly catchy and after the second or third listen you will sing along to the chorus, the third song, ‘Machines On Fire’ has an up tempo beat and its heavier than the previous songs, the drums come through pretty well.
‘Better Man’ has a hint of country to it. This might be because of the use of the harmonica or due to the use of the voice, either way this is one of the best songs in the album. Stands out more. Ol’s voice sounds passionate and you can feel the despair running through in conjunction with the lyrics. ‘Free World’ is the highlight in the album, musically this song is pretty great, the guitar and drums are in perfect sync, bouncing and complimenting each other. This song is about the music rather than anything else, the singing and the lyrics are more of a filler.
‘Where is the Summer’ is surprisingly a very summery song. You can close your eyes and imagine being sat on a beach drinking a refreshing mojito with its Caribbean influenced sound, taking in as much sun as possible. This album is not going to change your life, it is nice and fairly generic however, lyrically there is some depth to it and there are some gems in there. Definitely worth a listen if you are a fan of such artists like OneRepublic, Coldplay and ‘Beautiful World’ by Take That.
'Machines On Fire' is out now.
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Yellowire formed in 2010 and have had a lot of success in such a small period of time, they have performed at HMV’s Next Big Thing, Isle of Wight Festival, Rock am Ring & Rock im Park (in Germany), Hard Rock Calling in Hyde Park, Latitude festival and will be playing Reading and Leeds festivals next weekend. The band’s first single ‘One Last Breath’ was play listed by Radio 2 in the UK and had international support with Radio play across Europe, to as far afield as Dubai.
