The Yello music man releases a limited edition box set. Louder Than War’s Paul Scott-Bates reviews.

If you’re sat wondering what contribution Boris Blank has made to modern music, then wonder no more. The man often known as ‘the other one’ to Deiter Meier in Yello has released a quite magnificent collection of fifty-eight unreleased tracks spanning almost forty years in a quite lavish package.

Three vinyl albums, one metal-reel cassette, a double cd, one dvd and a thirty-six page booklet will set you back around £80, but is it any good? Well, the simple answer is ‘Yes’.

There are no inclusions of singles here, no Oh Yeah or The Race (although there are some tracks which may have been those two as work in progress?), but what is here is a fascinating insight into the workings of Blanks mind.

Remember that Blank never intentionally learned an instrument or to read music, but his imagination allowed him to construct the mightiest of soundscapes. When he started out in 1977 the sampler had yet to be invented, yet Blank still sampled sounds by means of tape loops and almost created something which would be commonplace many decades later. A true trailblazer.

Amongst the incredible retrospective are several new tracks including the title track with its throbbing bassline and racing melody he even manages to sneak in an acceptable vocoder within the funky wah-wah hook.