King Of Blue
Yes Indeed
-
King Of Blue
cat. MEA050
release 7" mini album + digital
release date March 2024
mastering
distribution Rush Hour
artist page
Music by Laurie Tompkins & Otto Willberg
Logo by Jess Hickie-Kallenbach
Digital Mastering by Mark Klon
Design by Meeuw

King of Blue by Yes Indeed sees members Laurie Tompkins and Otto Willberg further dive into their melismatic take on cosmic jazz and new electronics, by way of their highly eclectic and at times nonsensically sensical modus operandi. Their work is defined by an eloquent flurry of ideas, spheres, and signifiers, creating a musical universe of surprising longevity and depth. Treating musical convention with gentle disdain, Yes Indeed take on a variety of genres and moods and switch them around into a beautifully melismatic and dreamlike state of being. King Of Blue is a mini-album of fragmented beauty and warmth. It puts the illogical center stage and gives space to abruptly miniaturist musical ideas, allowing them to take on a meaning bigger than one would expect. It is cosmic music for modern times. A brazen descent into the execution of a fundamentally diversified musical stance. 

Yes Indeed are Laurie Tompkins & Otto Willberg. Live, they play keys, bouncy bass and sing over tactile, emotive samples. Their music is epic and also somehow wrong, with space for delicacy, straight-up joy and soaring licks. Since 2022's 'Rotten Luck’ - their first proper album, on Bison - YI have played across the UK and Europe. Solo, Laurie co-ran the Slip label and has put out CDs on Entr'acte, 33-33 and Hyperdelia. Otto is a roaming bassist in groups like Historically Fucked and Abstract Concrete and his LP of "wildly singular, wickedly trippy and sensual set of fusion jams" (Boomkat) was recently out on Black Truffle.

reviews

Yes aye! Laurie Tompkins & Otto Wilberg duo Yes Indeed make good on the promise of a 2021 single for Why Aye with a debut EP of melismatic bass goo and spangled synths like Funkadelic dropping mescaline with Pekka Airaksinen.
 
Respectively responsible for standout solo sides in recent years, especially that electric bass madness Willberg released via Black Truffle last year, with a wonderfully succinct, cunning twist on fusioneering styles in ‘King of Blue’. In 12 all-too-fleeting minutes they pucker up a six-piece suite of distinctive parts that gel into a remarkable whole, characterising their skill at wrapping classic templates into something familiar yet patently strange and head-turning.
 
Bursting on the mind with explicitly lysergic suss in the opening blast of shearing synth and rolling bass cadence, they come on in the tightest flashes of Funkadelic guitar lick and computer musick with ‘Double Doors’ and the skewed sexiness to ‘Top Floor’, messing with cartoonish phone voices in ‘Deer District’ and tying it all together in a standout titular denouement where it sounds vividly as though they’re actually speaking through the instruments with such vividly expressive, even absurd, chops, and allow it all to come down gently in ‘Fudge Sun’. Trust these are two of the best to do it right now.
 
Lovers of everything from classic Lovely Music, Inc. to Bootsy Collins should fill their boots immediately.
 
https://boomkat.com


 
»Metropolis« – toller Film. Ganz besonders toll, wenn von Jeff Mills live und nicht in Farbe vertont: Unheilschwangere Keys, gellende Orgeltöne und schiefe Arrangements bauen aus Mitteln des Fusion Jazz eine Musik gewordene Drohkulisse auf, die dem Opener von Yes Indeeds Minialbum »King Of Blue« frappierend ähnelt. Und doch macht »Dream Spot« etwas anders. Knapp nach der Minutenmarke setzt eine beruhigende Gitarre ein und löst die psychotische Atmosphäre. Es ist diese Kombination aus Habt-Acht-Stellung und den klanglichen Refugien des New Age, die das Duo aus Laurie Tompkins und Otto Willberg auf den sechs meist knappen Stücken immer wieder zelebriert. Die Übergänge geraten fließend, sodass sich das Minialbum zugleich anfühlt wie ein Minikonzert. »Double Doors« vermählt eine dramatische E-Gitarre mit den unentbehrlichen kosmischen Synths und klingt auf faszinierende Weise erratisch. Yes Indeed fangen stets mit einer blütenweißen Leinwand an, vermögen diese aber durchaus idiosynkratisch zu beklecksen. Und es ist nicht so, dass es keine genuin schönen Momente geben würde: Auf »Top Floor« betten sich berauschende Synths im Stile von Iasos auf einem erdigen Bassfundament. Und der Titeltrack könnte von Plaid stammen, arbeitet aber zugleich mit den breitbeinigen Registern der Rockmusik. Höchst einfallsreiches Kurzvergnügen, das mit seiner Hyperaktivität nah an der Grenze zur Überforderung agiert.
 
Maximilian Fritz
 
www.hhv-mag.com