All the Die-Hard Yello fans have been waiting for the new master piece to arrive. As a matter fact, they still have to wait. Some amongst us have been fortunate and blessed by whatever god. They received the promo directly or through friendly channels. Let me first address some Yello software that surfaced after Motion Picture. Mounted by the Gods. This movie soundtrack revealed a Blank that had progressed to yet another level of what Yello is all about. Soundscapes unheard before and still so familiar. Those who know Yello could tell the tracks originated from Sample God Boris, even if not aware he was behind the tracks. The Race - Brake Light Mix. Although I don't have any printed info on this asume it was Boris who constructed this very interesting remix. I believed it transmitted a signal with it's layered sounds an nearly hidden samples. A signal that secretly informed what to expect from The Eye. Topaz (Insect Mix). Well it sounds misty and fogged. How else can I discribe what I hear? But it remains a track which has the Yello Virus. An interesting theme, balancing on the border of Mission Impossible, but showing Blank's love for Big Beat. And now The Eye...I'm as honest as possible. You may spank, torment and even shave my eyebrows off... 01: Planet Data It starts off with a teasing reworked bell-synth and progresses into an ode to Kraftwerk. Some of the bridges in between that take your ears from segment to the next, are what you'd expect on an older Kraftwerk track. Further more it's the brakes that have a Hutter & Schneider kling (klang) to it. But don''t get me wrong. It does have an atmosphere of a modernised YGTSYTA Excess track. Yello is very much present in the typical percussion fills and voice percussions. Next to the Kraftwerk feel it could well be influenced by And One. It gave me the needed chill... 02: Nervous It starts of with the signal I received from Topaz and Brake light. Very delicate flanged sounds and a tremendous transparency. It appears to me as a link to Zebra where the rhythm is concerned. I love vocoded voices. It reminds me of Galactica and the Cylon Centurions. Oh... and there is that smell of Solid Pleasure. Dieter filling certain parts like only he could. His sort of screaming voice, expressing words while being muted on the rhythm, leaving a pulsating message for you to hear. It contains lyrics in a definite Yello Style... It drags me along and makes me feel empty as soon the track is over, with just one cure.... play it again and again. 03: Don Turbulento: Here we go. It starts of with a fragrance of Mounted by the gods. But it soon takes you along the sunset of tropical places. Little voice percussion are layered extreemly well in between the typical One Second percussion. Little teasing bells, and light toms and conga. Sweeping brushes. Dieter tells a tale, like only he can, and like only he should. Anyone else should leave it to Dieter if they feel a need to add it to a track. Dieter also takes us back to Solid Pleasure here. We here him talk in a way that is so strongly related to his earlier apearances in Boris' work. Here also the female voice has it's introduction. A voice that is too non-Yello. After getting acquainted with Billy McKenzy, Rush Winters, Eleonore, or even the mystical Farida, this girl/woman seems a tead bit out of place. Only not as misplaced in tracks yet to be addressed. This track takes me to mr. Rossy and his dog. Driving around in his car and a caravan. A cartoon I watched while still a child. Oh sweet memories. 04: Soul on Ice. I feel the Zebra peaking into the studio. But the Pictures with Motion have not left yet. And track 04 is filled with what you might have heard in Brake lIght and Topaz. Dieter as the messenger does his thing and Yello is definalty back in my room. The melody used to transport the lyrics is at first teasing and something to get used to, but soon it will fire the fuel in the Yello Oil Drum, and the heat is making you want more and more, making the ice on your soul melt. 05: Junior B. After a the intro measures the speed and tempo, the baseline takes you back to where Baby could have taken you. The soft slide of fading strings and soft choirs mixed with the bass and percussion does tell you're listning to Yello, but there's the female singing again, which she should do on other projects. Her voice has to rough harmonics. She would fit perfectly in a bar with some live band playing gits, bass and drums. A place where no one really is listening. Here on Junior B, she should have kept silent and just have Dieter tell us something about Junior. The woman is trying to do her best. A bit too much. A trained ear can hear her attempts to keep track of the emotion her voice should evoke while listening Junior B. 06: Tiger Dust. This one fits perfectly in what we've learned from Pocket Universe. But still it features enough of the new tricks Boris tought himself. The smell of Brake Light crawls up your nose, and the voices used as percussion do the trick to make it Yello and not something else. Although I must address that I would also believe this to be a remix done by some DJ who needed the money to get his own crap in the stores.But this would be the first real good remix ever done by a DJ who was allowed to get his/her -dirty- hands on Yello. 07: Distant Solution Here we go again. Motion Picture? Pocket Universe? The intro with sweeping choirs is indeed layered with a noise that seems a mutation of the one used on Pocket Universe. And after a long time we hear spanish guitars again. Has Chico paid a visit to the Yello Studio's? It would be a nice surprise. In this track we hear the female again. This time her voice has been treated enough to be alowed a preasance as a support to Dieters language skills. South American. But it sounds to un-Yello to me and somehow it doesn't. Ah damn... I'll shut up ...it's good as it is. Nice and cozy. It's warm and teases my eardrums. I'm all ready singing along...which should speak for itself. 08:Hypsters Delay. Who have been around the mailing list for some time will already know this track is the Loud and Clear surprise. A track I forgot to mention in my prologue. I have a thing for unconventional use of sounds and arrangements. Therefor it was this track that kept teasing me and I inhaled it deep into my mind, to record it to my virtual harddrive. The master of sound, the god of samples is really showing off. I must add that this track is different from the Loud & Clear version. So something to be collected and cause confusion on Kazaa... LOL. I like this. Not a whole record full, but it's a welcome instrumental in between the rest. 09: Time Palace. Now I know were I heard this type of voice before. It is a Dido - alike. This voice should fit perfectly on the Faithless albums. You know... they who have one massive track that makes you buy the album and toss it in the bin as soon as you find out that the rest of the album has nothing to do with it. This track, time palace, makes me flip the coin and claim something like this. The voice of the woman is so dominant, that it almost appears that I'm listening to her album, and that this track was remixed/produced by Boris... Still it has something about it that will have me sing to it while driving my old Chevrolet into a fading purple sky somewhere in the Northern parts of Holland. I even dare to claim to hear the woman attemting to add some Billy... 10: Indigo Bay. Oh Boris, make my heart bleed again with your drums! Make my heart race as you layer your fairlght treated sounds over them. Take me on that journey where your mind was when constructing something like this. Make me fill in the spaces with my own words. Let me be the DIeter that just left the studio when you added this to the score list of The Eye... I say... Mounted by the Gods... Cleaned up and fixed to fit The Eye as brow or lashes. If it were the contact lens of The Eye, the album would have been totaly different and truly Yello. 11: Unreal. The first sounds I hear take me to David Sylvian and Holger Tsukay (forgot to spell it correctly). But again it is the voice of the woman that takes me away from Yello. Again I feel like listening to her album, and Dieter and Boris helped her make some good tracks, to lift her album out of the mondain music that flood the music stores. Oh... Dieter.... Oh Boris... What made you convince to use her voice instead of Stina, Rush or... or... Farida? Can't you hear how hard she's trying to do her thing? Only few can understand what Stina is singing, but this woman is just to load and rough. Is that Loud & Clear? 12: Bougainville. The last one. Again and Again and Again. Here we have yet another track that has the fearless Blank and his Soneto Electronico skill. We are taken into a moving realm of sound and very Yello like flow of percussion that have To the Sea lingering through, with yet again the nearly missed Dieter who tells us something in French. My French is as good as my Swahili, and I have no idea what is going on. With its' three minutes it far too short. Conclusion: It is as always very important not be mislead by the name on the cover. This album... yeah it is Yello, it is good, but it could have been better, taking in mind that it took so long for it to surface. I understand that Boris and Dieter were involved in a lot of aother projects, but still. If you listen to it and you know all the earlier albums by heart, so you are as me invected by the Yello Virus, you will agree that this album is lacking something. Perhaps it is the complexity of sound you find on Pocket Universe and Motion Picture, or the roughness on Stella and YGTSYTA Excess. Or even the very experimental and pioneer like drive on Solid Pleasure and Claro Que Si. Don't get me wrong here. I'm happy and glad to hear something again that emerged from the Yello Studio's. Not too much artists have this rather emotional impact on me. No too many sound engineers give me the shivers and make the hair on my arms stand up. Next to my girl it's only Yello that can do it and keep on doing it. Most of all I miss the Excentric feel. That particular way how Boris can forge something into something so distinguishable from the rest in music land. This feel is still there, but somehow it is more faint compared to the rest I have collected over the years. But then again... maybe I have to get used to this just like I had to make a switch when Depeche Mode underwent a change after Violater when Songs of Faith and Devotion made it's entrance. I do miss Dieter in The Eye. Instead of the woman singing he should have gotten in the mike booth and use his typical voice to tell us the tales he has come up with while listening to Blank's soundscapes. The pressence of the female is too dominant on The Eye. One track would have sufficed. And if my girl wasn't such a shy butterfly she would have done a great job, if not better. But still. You lot out there should be heading to the stores and place your order to lay your hands on this new Yello album. It is one not te be left out of the collection. There's more than a handfull of tracks that do feed the mind and still the hunger after Motion Picture. And a second but: I just hope our two Swiss friends will not make us wait too long again with yet another Yello album. Yes!!! I'm already waiting for the follow up. What I said a while back has happened. The time I had to wait to hear new Yello Magic, has increased the hunger to such an extend that it is not stilled after listening to The Eye. So Boris & Dieter, if you have some guys or galls on your payroll to read what is going on in this list, I can only urge you to head back to the studio again and compile even more goodies. I'm in heat, I'm in need, I'm infected, I need the drug, I need the Yello Virus to be fed, I'm love with Yello, I need my heart to be soothed, I need...I beg... I .... I.... sigh... Your Yello Adict Rene