"Yell Hello To Yello"
Keyboard: March 1988
by David Leytze

If you've seen the movies Ferris Bueller's Day Off or The Secret Of My
Success, then you're already familiar with the eclectic pop sound of the
Swiss duo Yello.  If not, you're in for an intriguing journey through a land
of motile moods and hopping harmonies, whose constantly ticking groove spins
a dreary web for its mercurial melody.

The pair's biggest hit song, "Oh Yeah" (from the albums Stella [Elektra,
960401-1] and, more recently, One Second [Elektra, 832675-1]), has been
considered the movie song of the summers of '86 and '87, combining a punch
dance beat with some off-the-wall vocal manipulation.  Whispered words and
fleeting parts of sentences seem to drift by in the mass of thumping basses
and pounding drums.  Where does the influence come from?  Synthesist and
composer Boris Blank says that his half comes from work with noted composer
Carlos Peron.  "Back in 1977," he states, "Carlos and I started doing some
music together with 4-track tape recorders.  He brought in noises like
sirens and things to put together with my music.  In a way, he was kind of
sampling on tape."  The growling mood vocalist of the group, Dieter Meier,
dabbles in what Blank calls "extreme underground music."  The jusxtaposition
of styles has proven quite marketable in a time when techno-pop bands are
falling out of the trees.

Although both of their names are on the albums, with Meier vocalizing over
Blank's backing tracks, the two spend very little time together when
preparing an album.  "Since 1980, when we got together," Blank explains,
"we've spent more and more time in separate situations.  Dieter more likes
to make extreme underground music and I like to make pop songs, so the
directions of our working processes are different.  He is a very good
inspiration and has some good ideas, but he never really helps cultivate
songs."

Perhaps their lack of common musical ground is not the only reason for
Blank's desire to work alone.  "I don't read music and I've never had any
formal training.  I had to learn to play flute in school and couldn't handle
those black points on the page.  The music comes spontaneously out of my
fingers.  But when I create a piece, I alwyas have to be alone until the
piece is ready for vocals or other instrumental overdubs.  Before that, I
can't accept people in the room because I'm ashamed somehow to work.
Musicians will ask me, 'Here you play a D.  Why don't you do it with an A
harmony instead?'  and I am very embarrassed.  Once, I did a song with some
brass players and they asked each other, 'What?  The blues in F#?'  They
hadn't heard of the blues in F#."

Blanks seclusion, however, has allowed him to become adept at using the
technology that is at his fingertips.  "I liked to play with toys when I was
a child, and now I've replaced the toys with the Fairlight.  I still have a
lot of fun with the Fairlight.  I play it like a toy."  So, with the 
exception of a few guest humans, Yello's material reeks of sampling.  Having
been a Fairlight user since 1981, Blank considers sampling to be the wave of
the future.  "It's nice for a composer to be able to play a real violin, but
that's not necessarily my interest.  I'm always interested in using sampling
to replay certain instrumnets at all frequencies, or play an attack from a
low tom together with a string or something."

Sampling is his poison, but he still keeps a few of the old faithfuls
around.  Presently, Blank's keyboard set up consists of the Fairlight Series
III, a Yamaha DX7 (which he says is not used anymore), an ARP Odyssey, a
Roland D-50, and a Korg DW-8000.  He is also quite a collector of samples,
which he keeps stored on data tapes for his Fairlight.  "I have hundreds of
sampled keyboard sounds stored on streaming tape -- Oberheim Matrix-12,
Moogs, Polymoogs, and all the generation of analog synthesizers."  Although
he's an avid user of machines, he insists that the music must be soulful.
"There are a lot of machines which are very plastic and very sterile.  Then
there are some instruments on which you can go directly to the heart of the
machine.  You have to work for hours to get a nice bass [part], but you end
up with a very special kind of sound.  If you just go with the quantization,
then you never have the result that it sounds round like human beings."

It is the human aspect of Yello's music that Blank hopes will entice people
beyond the sizzling hi-hats and grinding bass.  He only wishes that his 
audience be moved.  "I like to invite people into the picture of the sounds,
into the mood of my music; to use not only their ears for hearing, but their
eyes for seeing the music.  That's my desire to the people.  When they
listen to it, they should get involved and be invited into the sound
picture.  They should be free to feel what they want to feel.  That's very
important for my ideas; not to just hammer something into their ears."