Yppah - They Know What Ghost Know
Record Label: Ninja Tune
Release Date: June 23, 2009
Who?
Yppah is the one-man project of Houston's Jose Corrales, Jr. They Know What Ghost Know is his second full-length release, following 2006's You Are Beautiful at All Times.
How Is It?
Yppah's mixture of trip-hop, post-rock and just a touch of dream pop is hard to classify and is probably best described as ambient electronic. They Know What Ghost Know isn't quite as interesting, but is probably a little more listener friendly, than the overlooked, and often spectacular You Are Beautiful at All Times. Vocal-free music doesn't get much catchier than the album's highlight "Gumball Machine Weekend." Corrales's knack for writing these memorable "instrumental" pieces has landed some of Yppah's recordings on the big screen (in the feature film 21) as well as on TV (an episode of CSI)-- hopefully some hipper placements are on the horizon-- but even when the songs aren't so immediate, like "The Moon Scene 7," there's simply so much at work it's hard not to be engaged by it. There are the looped samples and compressed sound of trip-hop, buzzing prog-rock keys, and an epic-sounding space rock backdrop. Perhaps it's what Portishead's third album would have sounded like had they waited only five or six years to record it instead of eleven. The psychedelic organ on the title track and the swirling electronic sounds of "City Glow" further complicate the task of ascribing a label to the album. No matter what you call it, They Know What Ghost Know is most remarkable for defying easy categorization while remaining so readily enjoyable and not confounding the listener.
They Know... is not nearly as great of an album as Beautiful but it is a decent album. I highly recommend the first for long drives, walks through the city, or any activity involving headphones. The layers of melody introduced one-at-a-time build upon eachother constructing a monument of sonic euphoria.
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