Arco
Yield

THE REVIEW

Arco is an elusive British group that has reached, with Yield, only its third album in more than 12 years of activity. Their last full-length, Restraint, dates back to 2004 and was recorded under Dreamy Records, a small London label that was also born (like the group) in '98, which in the meantime (the label) has ceased to exist. After 6 years left to age in a forgotten cellar in the London suburbs, Arco reemerges to the surface and to avoid making a stink in the first place, and to continue being the cool group that doesn't like advertising itself in the second place, they sail across the ocean and land at Pastel Music, an independent South Korean label (by the way, already a producer of Mono and the duo She & Him, formed by the talented American singer-songwriter M. Ward, whose album Transfiguration Of Vincent I recommend to everyone, and Hollywood actress Zooey Deschanel).

The discretion that characterizes Arco's image is also found in their music: Yield, as the very essential cover suggests, is a miniature glass greenhouse, resting on a ledge illuminated at an angle by the afternoon sun, divided into ten compartments, each containing a bud almost ready to bloom (90% of those reading this review are probably now counting the compartments on the cover. Yes, there are nine on the cover. But the songs are ten. You're killing my poetry). Anyway, in just over 33 minutes Arco offers us ten discreet panels with light brushstrokes and warm but subdued tones. The plucked and soft music embraces slender rhythms and whispered lyrics, for an altered and sweetened slow-core with a pop touch of indisputable English touch and a folk vein that refers to the intimate current of Nick Drake, which hardly fails to influence certain English groups; and then some echoes from the States, jazzy touches, tones shaded like Sodastream, some ecstatic contemplation on the usual isolated hill that people pass below and say: "look at those solitary emos, come on, grow up!" Trips to Brazil, slowed down bossa, prairies, some precious atmospheres like Sun Kil Moon but more because it is precious than because it actually resembles Sun Kil Moon.

Without being a gem, Yield knows how to find moments to reveal itself as precious. Therefore, if now and then you find yourself in South Korea because you too are tired of the cellar smell and simultaneously want to continue evolving from the context as good, incurable depressives, give Arco a knock. They might respond after a few years, but they are always friendly and comforting.