Day 227.
The B-Team: this is fantastic! here is an 8 song album called “Window Shopping” by the classic mod pop band The B-Team that were interviewed on the blog not so long ago! These 8 songs come from a 1985 and 1986 at various gigs!
Aiko el Grupo: a new song by this Spanish band that will soon be releasing a 10″ mini-lp on Elefant Records that will be titled “Va Totalmente en Serio…”. This new song is called “Quiero Conocer (Por tu Actitud)” and it also has a promo video for it!
Star Party: a new band from Washington State, with a 4 song demo available now on tape. And they also sell t-shirts. That’s cool, no? What’s even cooler is that they make a very fine cover of the Shop Assistants classic “Something to Do”!
Beach Vacation: another Washington State band that has a new release is Beach Vacation from Seattle. They are releasing on November 13 a tape with Z Tapes from Slovakia. This tape is actually a 9 song album and is titled “I Fell Apart”. We can preview two songs now, “Break the Ice” and “Our Night is Falling”.
Fine.: one of my favourite new bands as of late is this Boston, UK, band. Now and then they release a song that is just precious. Their latest is no exception. It is called “Little Voices” and again, it is very good.
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Let’s take a trip to France. Let’s talk about the Yachines.
I have wondered for a long time where did the name Yachines comes from. My theory is that it comes from Lev Yashin. The great Soviet goalkeeper. The “Black Spider” For many the best goalkeeper of history. I’ve seen his name written in French as Lev Yachine. So could it be?
I am still on the lookout of the records they put out. This French band actually came to my attention around 10 or so years ago, thanks to the Neo-Acoustic Guide, that great book the Japanese indiepop fans put together. They were known in Japan, perhaps thanks to a compilation put together by the fine Quince Records in 1998. This compilation was called “Yachines” (QRCP-9007) and included 20 songs in total. The first 14 songs were from the band’s first album “Fancy Kane”, the next 3 from the mini-album “My Love is a Star” and the last 3 were unreleased. The running tracklist is as follows” “Smashing Days”, “Yachines Town”, “I Believe”, “Les Nuits Magnétiques”, “Joséphine”, “Peppermint Drops”, “Superstar”, “Promesses”, “Just in Time”, “Fancy”, “Kane’s Dream”, “Paul”, “Here Today”, “Mr. Tambourine”, “My Love is a Star”, “One Love”, “Do You”, “Veronica”, “All Around the World” and “Le Reve Americain”.
The first release by the band was the mini-album “My Love is a Star” released by Pop Life United (94001) in 1994. This labels seems to be tha band’s own, but I can’t be sure 100%. The only two releases listed on Discogs by this label are Yachines releases. The mini-album songs were “My Love is a Star”, “One Love”, “Monday Man”, “Colors”, “Do You” and “Les Promesses”.
Two years later, 1996, the album “Fancy Kane” was released also on Pop Life United (CDLPU 96002). 14 songs were included and these were: “Smashing Days”, “Yachines Town”, “I Believe”, “Les Nuits Magnétiques”, “Joséphine”, “Peppermint Drops”, “Superstar”, “Promesses”, “Just in Time”, “Fancy”, “Kane’s Dream”, “Paul”, “Here Today” and “Mr. Tambourine”.
So the band. Yes. It was formed by Olivier Brion on guitar and vocals, Stéphane Bienne on drums and backing vocals, Nicolas Brion on bass and backing vocals. Miss Lever added backing vocals to “Les Promesses” and also on a cover song of “A Felicidade”, original by Antonio Carlos Jobim, which was included in the “A Tribute to Antonio Carlos Jobim” released in 1997 by XIII Bis Records (177192) in France, Gut Records (GUT-0046) in Taiwan and Quattro (QTCY-2112) in Japan. Worth mentioning that this compilation includes terrific bands including Cloudberry Jam, Ray Wonder or even Louis Philippe.
The only other compilation appearance I am aware by Yachines is on the “Fair 97” CD compilation released in 1997. This was a promno compilation and the band included the song “Les Promesses”.
The band members were in other bands too after the band called it a day. All three band members were in the band Discover in the early 2000s. Olivier also released a solo album called “Hôtel D’Angleterre” in 2007. And this year he released the single “Jekyll & Hyde”.
In 2013 the band did a reunion gig, a 20th anniversary reunion gig. They played in Paris on February 8th of that year. There’s a video with live footage of that gig!
I find a 1994 review of the mini-album on Les Inrockuptibles. Here it does say that the band named themselves after the legendary goalkeeper. It also mentions that Olivier Brion used to be in a band called Dorian Gray. Would be nice to find recordings by this band!
Then I do find Olivier Brion playing acoustic solo at the Bistropolitain in Paris on September 21st, 2018! How cool. At this gig he played a few songs and among them he played the Yachines song “My Love is a Star“.
I find the song “My Love is a Star” on Youtube. There it says that there was going to be a 25th anniversary edition of this song to be released on vinyl. Not sure if that happened. There seems to have been a website for Olivier Brion in 2018 when this was posted. But there is none. What a song this is. I hope someday it gets re-released of course.
Not too long ago our friends Toshiko and Fabien dedicated a post to them in their Anorak Crumble blog. And not much more for Yachines. I see a few more posts about Discover, the band that came after. But I am curious now about Yachines, his jangly indiepop band.
Who remembers them? Did they record more songs? Appear on more compilations? Would love to find out more about them. Such a great sounding band!
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Listen
Yachines – Yachines Town
