yek koo

Love Song for the Dead C LP - Will be part of an exhibition opening March 24th, 2012

Yek koo Interview with Emerald Cocoon - November 2, 2011

"Helga Fassonaki (of Metal Rouge) returns as Yek Koo with her first new release since last years 'I Saw Myself' on Stunned Records. Gone are the horizontal string-sprawl epics of past, replaced by a new density and compositional focus. Dictaphone guitar-swirl and declamatory vocal preaching atop loping nod-out rhythm samples, you could almost say Yek Koo has gone pop….until the b-side hits: a sheet of live industrial slamming recorded at LA's now defunct spiritual hub, the Echo Curio, that sounds like a realtime channelling of Kali. As hard to pin down as ever, the closest point of comparison would be the Morley/Russell split 7" lathe on Corpus Hermeticum left to percolate in the merciless Californian sun And even that sounds nothing like it. Confusing, enticing, nuanced and brutal. Part 3 of the 'Alone Together' series". - EC
Mastered by Pete Swanson. Edition of 300. Available at Emerald Cocoon.

Click here to listen to an excerpt of Oh Woman

Reviews:
Sound Projector - January 2 2012

Still Single Vol. 7, No. 8 - October 27, 2011
With its layers of fx-laden guitar and urgent/eerie singing, "Oh Woman" sounds like it was made at the tail end of a serious Dome binge. That's no bad thing. "Flame Creation" was recorded live, although the profusion of sounds at play — clattering percussion loop, inchoate utterances bouncing off the walls, and what sounds like a guitar trying to knock them down — suggests that a fair bit of pre-game prepared was involved. Gothic in the best possible sense, which means that it's bleak and spooky but doesn't feel like the make-up's more important than the music. - Bill Meyer

CDr reissue of I Saw Myself, innitialy released on Stunned Records (c27). This run is a special edition of five - each comes with a slightly altered Life Nature book.

Click HERE to listen to tracks from 'I Saw Myself'

"A lone voice etches straight to dictaphone the vibrations which have been petrified far too long in mere stone & silicone. Identity awoken in a night of raw fidelity, this oracle's expression inhabits trance tones and punk-chant poesis. Gouge out your eye and trade it in for better ears, because Helga Fassonaki's solo project Yek Koo is back after a nearly two-year hiatus. Quite a spirited fever has accumulated since this half of LA's Metal Rouge performed her 'Psychic Atonement for Land Deaths' on Digitalis. 'I Saw Myself' shatters any restricting Mirror of our species with Yek Koo's dynamically expanded vocal range and we are left freed, finding peace among the shards and surrender in the pieces. Special hand numbered edition of 111 pro-dubbed & imprinted c27 tapes with double-sided die cut color jcard and insert." - Stunned Records

Click HERE to listen to tracks from 'I Saw Myself'

"Based on a live event at the Auckland Festival AK07, this release captures in sound and vision impressive moments from a unque international collaboration between 12 sound artists. S3D (ear & eye) celebrates the magic of the new. An international collaboration, twelve experimental instrument builders & improvisers in an inspirational world-first. Two hour DVD & 80 minute CD distilled from three days of performance." -atoll

s3d artists include: Ernie Althoff, Phil Dadson, Empirical, Bart Hopkin, Walter Kitundu, Graeme Leak, James McCarthy, Sam Morrison, Tom Nunn, Akio Suzuki, Yek koo, Adam Willetts

"Music is prayer, this much we know. All music of any worth is religious in one of two senses: devotional or shamanistic. Devotional being from inside out (offering), shamanistic being from the outside in (channeling). This album is the marriage of both. Pedal steel, vocals and synthesizer channel an earth rent by human migrations. An earth scarred by sentience and culture uses both sentience and culture to voice its distress - this is shamanism. The shaman prepares an album. Using the dual vehicles of sentience and culture, a libation is prepared, prayer spills out of the speakers of the few, seeking the many…. Using the sword to cure the wound. This is the offering. Who are we but strands in the tapestry of stars? To appreciate this savage irony is the best we can do, is all we can offer. This is psychic atonement for land deaths." - Andrew Scott

Yek Koo 'A Plea For A Night Desert Blue Moon Storm' – Santur, Setar, vocals, computer and tape machine set free in the valleys and canyons of suburban Los Angeles.

This is a CD of automatic devotional streams like curtains of rain. This is a CD of stringed gamelan rituals punked onto suburban night skies. There is a rush of suspension, that moment, the stage-diver propelled out above the crowd conscious only of impulse and impact.

Imagine if the sensation of acceleration could be slowed to a crawl. Imagine the locus of will and movement (cf. Charlemagne Palestine, the thin weave of Argon-era Skullflower). There is a surface that breaks upon the impact of will and duration, untether yourself, beneath this river you will hear an absent orchestra, strings rubbed raw by computers, one mountain beset by heavy rains.

Living electricity has its own history which Yek Koo is breathing into the Santur and Setar. It is the animating power made manifest. It spreads in concentric waves, freeing electrons in its path. Again, untether yourself – we are but simple engineers, pressing buttons, turning keys, undoing locks - to be lost, to be pulled in and under by the current of ritual overtones – this is where the true spirit begins. - Andrew Scott

01. (5:00)

5 field recordings, recorded onto home-made audio loopers. then performed and mixed live with the addition of two digital effects pedals.

the recordings include the following:
-greg's alienized voice message (4-3-07)
-lou reed bootleg concert, originally recorded on dictaphone in 2002 venice, italy (5-9-07)
-boiling jug (4-18-07)
-radio recording of a religious fanatic preaching about "spiritual dedication" (5-9-07)
-bells (5-9-07)

To find out about upcoming yek koo live dates, please click here.

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