Yellow

Some of the best moments here are twitchy funk miniatures, driven by tuba basslines, distorted Fender Rhodes riffs and chant-based vocals, which leave you wanting more. [Aug 2021, p.35]

So, yes, the album will disorient you and space you out like a psychedelic trip. That’s her intent but there are serious notions at work as well. ... It’s a lot to take on but somehow, she pulls it off. Grab your headphones and take the trip.

The end result is vast and ambitious yet deliberately welcoming. Its many sounds and rhythms greet listeners wherever they are and compel them to invest in an altogether wondrous sonic journey for body, mind, and soul.

Her ability to overdub against herself, creating the illusion of live interaction, is startling and thrilling to hear. Too often, one person music has a certain sterility and airlessness, but Thackray’s work is loose and groove-oriented, shuffling with an energy that brings to mind Erykah Badu’s New Amerykah albums while singing about opening one’s third eye. [Jul 2021, p.71]

Self-consciously designed to echo a transformative lysergic experience, ‘Yellow’ comes to embody everything Emma-Jean Thackray strives towards, and describes: you emerge in a quite different space than the one you entered in, the world around you subtly transfigured.

The record – which is equally rewarding to both newcomers and devotees of the genre – nails the transcendental and transportive qualities Thackray aims to showcase.

Yellow scatterguns through P-Funk, Alice Coltrane, gospel, Sun-Ra, electric-era Miles Davis and '70s jazz-fusion with glee. [Aug 2021, p.85]

Despite the abundance of compositional ideas, they are all executed with attention to clarity, cohesion and detail. Thackray's auteurist approach in the studio combined with her peerless precision and control feel like a whole new genre unto itself.

It’s taking what is inherently a complex form of music – and is still highly technical in the hands of these players – and makes it into something for all to enjoy. It’s the kind of album that ‘purists’ will possibly scoff at for its accessibility and poptimism, but you get the feeling that Thackray wouldn’t want them as fans anyway. All she wants from her listeners are open ears, open hearts and open minds.

Few people would dream up an album as endearingly obtuse and gleefully dysfunctional as Yellow, let alone have the skill to realize it.

While ‘Yellow’ mixes it up nicely with freak-outs, group chants, P-funk and mellowing R&B, it is lyrically where the album wearies.