Bristol multi-instrumentalist, producer and nature freak Will Yates offers a new record from his Memotone alias, an expansive, hypothetical revue titled How Was Your Life?

Launching from terrains recognizable to fans of Will’s extensive, restless discography, How Was Your Life? packs up his penchant for baroque druid folk, homespun electronics and weightless woodwinds and explodes them into glistening, fractal star dust.

Instigated by the purchase of an antiquated Y2K era guitar synthesizer, the record was produced over the first half of 2022, in a large part a result of in-studio improvisation and carved by equipment that offered both possibilities and parameters that Will relished and explored to the nth degree. The Roland GR33 not only provided sublime guitar sounds but also empowered the guitar to convincingly mimic fretless bass, tabla and a vast percussive array, also summoning an artillery of uniquely outre atmospheres over the course of the record. The resulting concoction sounds familiar yet subtly, unshakeably otherworldly, shaping up as perhaps the most honed, energized and beatific Memotone album to date.

Paradise Drips gently lifts off with wobbly guitar, randomized sequences and unidentifiable percussive elements situating us somewhere in an unearthly realm, before Open World zaps the serotonin receptors and gushes with ecstatic warmth, it’s quietly insistent soft disco shuffle and levitational fretless driving towards a totally blissed and very soft “drop”. Forest Zone sees Memotone deep in the green, with a loose, propulsive groove and dancing flutes stumbling into a medieval ritual in the clearing halfway through, and Glow In The Dark deftly bounces between spacey ambience and an undulating no wave vamp. Carved By The Moon is a delightfully melted classical cut, while Canteen Sandwich offers the record’s most explicitly nod to modernity in the form of a nimble drum workout with samurai synths and melodic percussion that heaves towards a genuine peak. Lonehead immediately backs right off, viscerally melancholic clarinet and bubbling fx making for the records most hefty introspective moment, before Walking Backwards simmers all the way down on an wistful arpeggio, rooting back in earthly reality with charmed rhythms and jazzy tunings. Catharsis complete, Memotone is onto the next incarnation.

Will Yates has been making music as Memotone since 2010, releasing music on labels like Black Acre, Disktopia and Accidental Meetings, also releasing music as O.G. Jigg and Half Nelson. He’s worked as a producer, session musician and live performer on a broad spectrum of projects, and recently provided source sounds that made up Batu’s “Opal” on Timedance.

How Was Your Life? was written, produced and mixed by Will Yates. It was mastered by Chris Wang. Art and design by Hugo Bernier. More

Bristol multi-instrumentalist and producer William Yates combines electronic jazz, bass, beats, loops and samples in the masterly ethereal and hypnotic way. More

25-year old Bristol based multi-instrumentalist Memotone (aka William Yates) returns with a bleak, beautiful and politicised new album, set for release on electronic mavens Black Acre in April. His new album "Chime Hours" follows his stunning debut LP "I Sleep. At Walking." A master of 11 instruments, Memotone comes from a family of artists and grew up on a diet of grunge, minimal classical compositions and electronic music. Yates is also an illustrator and film composer (he recently sound-tracked a horror serial produced by Eli Roth), something that runs deep within his avant-garde productions. Creating an otherworldly sate of mind with sonic soundscapes, the albums roots twists around rural horror, techno and neo-classical sounds mixed with field recordings documenting archaic seasonal ceremonies. From the spiralling darkness and crackled techno pulse of "Poison Arrow" to Memotone's ghostly melodies intersecting brutal electronics on "All Collapsed", the album buzzes with a variation of moods and ideas from an artist not afraid to run the full gamut of emotions. Emphasizing texture over tone, "CHIME HOURS" is heavily centered around the sounds of a analogue synthesizer, whilst also featuring live cello, piano, clarinet, violin, church organ, guitars/bass and trumpet that's given a distorted twist. The album also sees Memotone bring his voice further forward; creating brief flourishes of glimmering effects. On tracks "All Collapsed" and "You Saw the Future" Memotone toys with ideas surrounding a post apocalyptic world that's stripped bare by humans, whereas the rest of the album takes influence from The Middle Ages; rituals, civil war, gritty hand to hand combat and a fear of ghosts and the religion that surrounds them. Memotone recorded the rituals practiced at a folk celebration in a village near where he grew up, explaining that: "I thought, perhaps there is a reflection of our distant future in our past. Not only the middle ages but spanning human history. We have already lived, and more importantly survived; through times as hard as the ones we are self imposing now." The title "CHIME HOURS" is taken from English folklore, which believed that those born at certain hours could see ghosts. Layered with abstract noises, analogue electronica and snatches of fragile melody, "CHIME HOURS" evokes darkened alleyways and ethereal worlds, making for a deeply immersive album that's testament to a distinctively inventive artist.
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