Wonderful words by the ever erudite Adam Turner.

Coyote’s music sometimes feels like the soundtrack to a dream. Last year’s 6-track EP Hurry Up And Live and now their new mini-LP, Wailing To The Yellow Dawn, both pull off that trick, the music often feeling like those vivid R.E.M. moments that occur just before waking. There are sampled voices uttering gnomic phrases, deep burblings of dub bass, washes of synths, glassy FX and hazy filters, all summoning those half awake / half asleep moments where nothing is quite what it seems.

The opening number reflects the feeling of being woken and being unsure if this is reality or not, a collaged conversational voice stating, ‘I don’t have time for things which are not real… I want my life to feel distinctive… Is It Real?’. Hand drums patter away, long chords alternate gently, eventually a repeating arpeggio works its way to the foreground. Everything becomes blurred and then comes to an end with echo ricocheting between the speakers.

Zen Sponge shifts gear a little, clunking drums and dub bass, hisses of steam, an easy flow until two minutes in when it all breaks down, synth notes bounce around, a pause… the beat comes back. Naturally fades in on crackle and a string drone, two notes of funk bass, another disembodied voice and more gently padding drums. There’s the spectre of Eno and Byrne’s Bush Of Ghosts, of post-punk tension, the sampled speaker never quite clear enough to be heard fully… ‘… it’s not that I want to be like this…’

The three tracks on Side 2 see Timm and Ampo push the dreamscape on. We Did Okay has yet another borrowed vocal reciting a different repeating phrase: ‘people, never give up, we did okay’, while synths flutter around pulsing rhythms. Splinters of sound and reverb-ed percussion bring Misty Start into being, which boasts one of Coyote’s characteristic dub basslines… and a xylophone. It’s a touch trippy, ever so slightly out of kilter. 

The set ends with That’s Life, whose sampled speaker asks: ‘Is it just me or is it a little crazy right there?’ The tempo’s more urgent, more propulsive, the synths slightly sharper, and a piano leads the way. This is swapped for a sax in the breakdown. Then the rhythm kicks back in. There’s laughter, and then that question again: ‘Is it just me?’

You can listen to Coyote’s Wailing To The Yellow Dawn, and preorder a copy, at Juno. 

You can find more proper, on point, prose from Adam Turner over at his own brilliant blog, The Bagging Area. Adam is also part of the admin team at the mighty Flightpath Estate.