Yammerer: Reality Escape Resort EP, and Live Review

Reminds us of: The Fall, Wire, Gang of Four, Can, Neu! Links to footage from their live performance in blue

They’re a curious bunch Yammerer, a bit of an enigma. No social media accounts, no Spotify bio, they don’t tend to do interviews, their singer looks like Ian Astbury’s scruffy lovechild and he sings in with the audience at gigs instead of joining the band on stage. They do make bloody good music though, enough for John Kennedy of Radio X to come and check them out third on the bill at a pub in Tufnell Park on a cold January night, and of course for the far less important me to do the same.

Yammerer’s debut EP ‘Reality Escape Resort’ came out late last year on Restless Bear Records. Airport kicks off proceedings, a frenetic post punk number that the Fall would have killed to have produced themselves. Poisonous Reptilian Colleagues & Co follows, similarly unhinged and post punky with a great breakdown towards the end.  Yfves Head  (Wifes Head) keeps the energy going with a riff that sounds like an alarm going off somewhere and the EP concludes with Seasons 13-31, 9 minutes of spiky guitar, motoric beats and irreverent ranting. It’s excellent stuff.

They are equally as impressive live, as I find out when I saw them play their third London gig at the wonderful Aces and Eights bar in Tufnell Park. Their set began and concluded with 9-minute numbers that built and built beautifully, interspersed with three of the shorter tracks from the EP. Yammerer have some seriously talented musicians and the music is beautifully put together, which is why they can get away with playing tracks of that length at gigs, and why you get the impression that their album (if there is going to be an album) will be something to really look forward to.

​Interestingly the room filled for their set, and then emptied out for the other two bands on the bill, so one can only assume that their reputation is rapidly growing. Hopefully we’ll see them playing out and around the UK this year and get to hear some new material from them.

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