Posted in Whathaveyou on March 1st, 2021 by JJ Koczan
Hey, that’s awesome. Good for you, Somali Yacht Club. Along with Stoned Jesus being on Napalm, the Lviv trio’s signing to Season of Mist is the biggest heavy-underground inking I can think of — please correct me if I’m wrong. It’s good news in any case, and all the more so since it comes with word of a new album on the horizon. That’ll be fun, especially as it coincides with reissues for 2018’s The Sea (review here) and 2014’s The Sun (discussed here). Sign me up for new stuff for sure.
I’m normally in favor of get-it-all-out-there-as-fast-as-possible-or-at-least-send-it-to-me-early, but in Somali Yacht Club‘s case, if the new record doesn’t show up for a bit, I think that might be okay and give people a chance to get caught up. The Sea and The Sun both resonate on a frequency ill-suited to a quick superficial listen. These are records worth diving into. If a reissue gets an opportunity to do that before being overshadowed by a new album, I think that’d be fine.
On the other hand, new stuff please.
It’s an ongoing debate. With myself. Because I don’t have friends.
Anyhow, congrats to the band and cheers to Season of Mist on the ace pickup:
SOMALI YACHT CLUB Signs to Season of Mist
Season of Mist are proud to announce the signing of psychedelic stoner rock trio SOMALI YACHT CLUB! The band will be releasing a brand new album as well as their back catalogue via Season of Mist in the near future. Stay tuned!
The band comments: “We’re proud to announce that our new album will be released on the Season of Mist. It’s an honor to be part of their roster, featuring many bands that are significant to us. We’re very excited and hope that this cooperation will be fruitful! “
For a glimpse of what to expect, check out SOMALI YACHT CLUB on Bandcamp!
SOMALI YACHT CLUB is a psychedelic stoner rock trio from Lviv, Ukraine. It started out as a jam session between band members from different Lviv groups, but soon turned into the main act for each of them.
The trio self-released the demo EP called ‘Sandsongs’ in 2011. After this, they played numerous shows in Ukraine and shared the stage with bands like ELDER, KADAVER, RED FANG and others. The first album “The Sun” was released on September 11, 2014 (Robustfellow). After the 2015 release of LP “The Sun” (Bilocation Records) the band went on their first European tour with ETHEREAL RIFFIAN (UA).
In 2018, SOMALI YACHT CLUB released the second album “The Sea” (Robustfellow, Bilocation Records) and toured with STRAYTONES (UA) and STONED JESUS Jesus (UA). The stoner rockers have played at festivals like Void, Swamp, Keep It Low and several Garmonbozia festivals.
Posted in Features on April 29th, 2020 by JJ Koczan
The statistics of COVID-19 change with every news cycle, and with growing numbers, stay-at-home isolation and a near-universal disruption to society on a global scale, it is ever more important to consider the human aspect of this coronavirus. Amid the sad surrealism of living through social distancing, quarantines and bans on gatherings of groups of any size, creative professionals — artists, musicians, promoters, club owners, techs, producers, and more — are seeing an effect like nothing witnessed in the last century, and as humanity as a whole deals with this calamity, some perspective on who, what, where, when and how we’re all getting through is a needed reminder of why we’re doing so in the first place.
Thus, Days of Rona, in some attempt to help document the state of things as they are now, both so help can be asked for and given where needed, and so that when this is over it can be remembered.
Thanks to all who participate. To read all the Days of Rona coverage, click here. — JJ Koczan
Days of Rona: Somali Yacht Club (Lviv, Ukraine)
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How are you dealing with this crisis as a band? Have you had to rework plans at all? How is everyone’s health so far?
We’re all alive and well! Could say the crisis isn’t so crucial for us (Desertfests in London and Berlin have been canceled, Australian tour was postponed to November), but rather untimely. We got a good boost after the autumn tour and we feel that it is worth to tour more now. In addition, the autumn will be full of concerts. It is already difficult to find a free date.
We are now actively using the time to record a new album. This is our almost our only reason for leaving home.
What are the quarantine/isolation rules where you are?
Most people work from home or at quarantine. All establishments are closed except supermarkets / grocery stores, pharmacies and banks. We must wear a mask in crowded places. Authorities do not restrict people from walking, but after warm weekends imposed penalties for picnics. People are enough responsible — they are queued at a distance from each other, the city center is empty. Only in sleeping quarters are quite crowded.
Worried about the increase in police force on the streets and possibly tougher quarantine rules. There is a feeling that these measures are exaggerated and will be used to strengthen positions of power (e.g., for suppressing unwanted rallies). Let’s see.
How have you seen the virus affecting the community around you and in music?
The impact of quarantine is obvious — musicians, organizers, venues, etc. just stopped. As I see it, people are just waiting. Someone is immersed in creativity (is engaged in music, mastering tracks, etc.), someone is trying to establish business in new conditions (acquaintances from renting musical equipment shoot live shows). The whole is ecosystem stopped and can’t earn money. Quarantine losses will depend on its duration.
At the highest level, we have the situation that the government is seriously (more than half!) reducing the cost for cultural development. There is never a time for culture in Ukraine and now it will take a few steps back.
What is the one thing you want people to know about your situation, either as a band, or personally, or anything?
From us — we are actively recording demos, for you — just stay at home as much as it’s possible and survive in this interesting time.
[Click play above to hear ‘Vero’ from Somali Yacht Club’s The Sea. Album is out Jan. 22 on Robustfellow Productions and Kozmik Artifactz.]
The second full-length from Lviv-based three-piece Somali Yacht Club, The Sea, would seem to speak more to a spirit of progressive melancholia than its predecessor, 2014’s The Sun (discussed here). This is despite the fact that the two records share in common deep-toned heavy psychedelic underpinnings and an overarching rhythmic fluidity. One could argue that it’s been four years and perhaps the Ukrainian trio of guitarist/vocalist Mez, bassist Artur and drummer Lesyk have grown as an outfit as a result of touring and appearing at notable gatherings like Desertfest Berlin, SonicBlast Moledo, etc., but to listen to the six-track/53-minute outing and ignore the apparent mindfulness behind its drift is to miss out on one of the album’s most resonant appeals.
It’s not just a record that jams out spacious tones and gently echoing melodic vocals in a tossed-off manner; there is an overarching purposefulness to its fluidity and to its presentation, which begins with the opening salvo provided by the extended “Vero” (11:38) and “Religion of Man” (12:02) and moves directly into the Elder-style heavy-prog shimmer of the shortest inclusion, “Blood Leave a Trail,” which still has enough swirl to not be a contrast in its 6:20 run. If one wanted, I suppose, they could hear The Sea and simply get lost in the wash of “Vero” and suddenly snap back to consciousness after the finale of “Crows” has ended, but whether it’s Arthur‘s bassline as the foundation for the volume swell of effects at the start of “Hydrophobia” or the swinging taps on Lesyk‘s ride cymbal as “Vero” jazzily approaches its peaceful, atmospheric midsection, the collection is rife with details that warrant active engagement.
In other words, the more one puts into hearing it, the more satisfaction one is likely to reap from The Sea on the whole. To wit, the initial pairing of “Vero” and “Religion of Man” is perhaps the most obvious showcase of intent on the part of Somali Yacht Club in terms of their desire to fully engage and hypnotize, and while they come close to earning the immediate points of opening with their longest track — there should be a partial credit system for the salvo as a whole, but I haven’t worked out the metrics of such things; check back (or don’t) — it’s the breadth in the midsection of “Vero” that’s most likley to entrance outright. All throughout The Sea, the band demonstrate an ability to transition between wide-cast ambience and more directly weighted, riffier fare, and that’s true of the linear build in the second half of “Vero” as well as it picks up past the seven-minute mark and lumbers to its exciting conclusion, but it’s the patience there and in “Religion of Man” as well (speaking of details: the low-end angularity and feedback interplay in the eighth minute has to be heard to be believed) that makes the execution such a thrill to fully embrace and in tempo as much as construction, the songs are truly progressive in the sense of being thoughtful works manifesting a decisive creative growth.
That Somali Yacht Club then manage to shift modus into the six-minute “Blood Leave a Trail” essentially without missing a beat shows how well they’ve already managed to carry their listeners with them, and as the rest of The Sea rolls toward the shore, there is never a moment at which they seem either to be out of control or unaware of what effect their material might be having on their audience. Certainly they take their time getting to where they’re going, but as a whole, The Sea is almost perfect in its pacing, and the fact that Mez, Artur and Lesyk so confidently move at such a languid clip only further speaks to their progress in developing a chemistry over the last several years coming off the debut.
Serene and still a little sad, “Hydrophobia” begins the second half of the tracklisting (one assumes side B of the vinyl actually starts with “Blood Leave a Trail” before it) with an exploratory feel, but splits shortly after its midpoint to the most driving moment on The Sea, quicker in its tempo and more forceful in its swing, but still holding to the reach of the prior tracks in tone and reverb. The final four inclusions on The Sea— “Blood Leave a Trail,” “Hydrophobia,” “84 Days” and aforementioned closer “Crows” — are arranged longest to shortest, so the effect is that the record works to re-immerse the listener as it goes, and it’s telling that the last pairing of “84 Days” and “Crows” are shorter at 7:27 and 9:13, respectively, than the tracks were at the outset, as though Somali Yacht Club didn’t want to ask too much indulgence on the part of their listenership.
That may or may not be their motivation, I don’t know, but the track arrangement works just the same like a rising tide that gradually swells to engulf the shore. “84 Days” is massive by the time the vocals arrive late, having grown so subtly along the way that it’s perhaps the easiest point on the record to lose one’s self, and as the standalone riff of “Crows” begins the last piece, the band seem to be securing their triumph with a victory lap of a groove. Well earned. There’s an uptick in pace as they move toward the middle — Lesyk seeming to double-time it on drums — but it’s shortlived, and the core of “Crows” resides around a singular, nod-ready progression that lumbers in the fullness of its fuzz early and reemerges from the psych-gazing middle third to cap the finale with due payoff for the reaches plumed before it.
If 75 percent of the earth is water, The Sea might just be wet enough to earn its name, but where the album’s true achievement lies is in the grace with which its component pieces come together and the flow that unites them as a whole work, cohesive in sound and purpose and resonant in tone and emotion. One is curious to think what might happen if Somali Yacht Club, after The Sunand The Sea, finally approach landfall with their third outing, but wherever these sonic waves ultimately carry them, the journey is a joy to behold.
Posted in Whathaveyou on December 27th, 2017 by JJ Koczan
In the swaying rhythm, melody and swirling lead in the back half of the newly-unveiled ‘Blood Leave a Trail,’ one can hear Ukrainian trio Somali Yacht Club working under the progressive heavy rock influence of Elder‘s Lore album as they follow-up their 2014 debut, The Sun (discussed here), but there’s some dreamy psychedelic vibes underlying that spirit and that suits them no less well than the directed cohesion around which the track is ultimately based. The Sea, which is the album from whence “Blood Leave a Trail” comes, is set to release Jan. 28 via Robustfellow and Kozmik Artfactz both, and preorders have been made available for those who like to get these things out of the way early, before, you know, spending money on less important stuff like paying bills or buying food or whatever it might be. Priority goes to rock.
Hard not to dig this cover art, right? I don’t know who did it, but yeah. If I was the kind of guy to keep a list of awesome album covers throughout the course of a year and post it every December, I might just think 2018 had its first entry on same.
From the PR wire:
Robustfellow announce pre-orders for SOMALI YACHT CLUB’s sophomore album “The Sea”, out on January 28th.
Robustfellow Prods. announce pre-orders for “The Sea”, the long anticipated sophomore album of Ukrainian dream-toned psychedelic trio SOMALI YACHT CLUB. After the release of their highly acclaimed first album “The Sun”, which demonstrated the band’s ability to create dreamy vibe, mix styles and immerse listeners into phantasmagorical sound landscapes, SOMALI YACHT CLUB expand their musical horizons with their next LP “The Sea”. Warm grooves, atmospheric psychedelia, rich fuzz, airy leads masterfully blend in one sonic canvas and show progression of the band both in terms of songwriting and lyricism.
“The whole album is built upon the story about love, friendship, hope, and trust”, vocalist and guitarist Ihor comments. “Our music gets darker, more sophisticated and deep with each song. Imagine the dark clouds that are sinking lower and lower and dark-blue waves that are rising higher and higher.”
From the 22nd of December, you can pre-order CDs, limited editions, t-shirts, patches, bundles and many more via Robustfellow Prods. The album release will be accompanied with a massive merchandise sale at this location. Vinyls will be available via Kozmik Artifactz (links below) in the beginning of spring.
1. Vero 2. Religion Of Man 3. Blood Leave A Trail 4. Hydrophobia 5. 84 Days 6. Crows
Posted in Whathaveyou on November 30th, 2017 by JJ Koczan
Ukrainian heavy psych rockers Somali Yacht Club made a resonant impression with, well, the resonance, of their debut album, The Sun (discussed here), which was issued by Robustfellow in 2014 and Kozmik Artifactz in 2016. The same two imprints combine their efforts in order to stand behind vinyl and CD pressings of the band’s second full-length, the six-song The Sea, which follows suit in vibe from its predecessor while further marking the progressive growth on the part of the group.
What does that mean? How does it manifest in the songs? The record’s not out until late January, so there’s some time really before one can expect some audio to be made public to find out — and I hope to have more on the release sometime between now and then, be it a track premiere or whatever — but on first impression, there’s an immediate warmth and sense of flow that would seem to fit with the titular theme at the very least, and while in a heavy psych context I can hardly even look at anything named The Sea and not hear the chorus of the Sungrazer song, it’s obvious Somali Yacht Club are thinking of it more in direct relation to the prior debut. Maybe they’ll do The Sand next and make it a day at the beach. Who knows?
The PR wire knows:
Dreamtoned trio from Ukraine, Somali Yacht Club, are going to release their sophomore album “The Sea” on Robustfellow Prods. (CDs and limited editions) and Kozmik Artifactz (vinyls).
After their first LP “The Sun” – which was highly acclaimed both by critics and listeners worldwide and showed the band’s ability to mix styles, create dreamy vibe and submerge listeners into fantastic sound landscapes – the band is ready to continue their musical journey with their next album “The Sea”. Rich fuzz, blended with atmospheric psychedelia, warm grooves and airy leads show the band’s progression both musically and lyrically and once again prove Somali Yacht Club’s inventiveness in blending styles.
1. Vero 2. Religion Of Man 3. Blood Leave A Trail 4. Hydrophobia 5. 84 Days 6. Crows
