Joss Jeffersøn - Ylem Review ⚡️ - More Fuzz Stoner Rock Blog

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A Unique Psychedelic Experience that Goes Beyond Music...

Heya fuzzers, I’m back with a really unique piece of art, and I’m not only talking about the art of music. Yes, these guys, Joss Jeffersøn, created something beyond music as you’ll discover in this review. This 4-piece coming from Alicante, Spain is composed of members from several awesome bands of the scene, especially Lluís Mas & Miguel A. Sanz who are both part of Pyramidal (we reviewed their split with DOMO here, and their album “Froxen Galaxies” here), one of the finest Space/Heavy-Psych band. So be ready for a unique and beautiful Psychedelic experience, you won’t regret it !

How is the sound ?

Well, the sound is one thing. But like I said, what Joss Jeffersøn did with Ylem goes further than that.

When I first hit the play button on their bandcamp, I was instantly hooked by the first notes of “Eis“, those delayed arpeggios form an atmosphere that reminded me the soundtrack of Final Fantasy VII, my favorite game ever 😉 Though, what I didn’t notice was a little paragraph that says : “These recordings are meant to be heard while reading the short story that accompanies the music. We highly recommend to do this, as you experience the whole work as it was conceived.”

Wow, now this is getting even more interesting! Let’s hit the Buy button and discover what lies behind this “short story”.

So you’ll indeed get a beautifully designed PDF file if you purchase the album. Each page tells the story of each of the 5 tracks of the album. Though it’s a single story from the beginning to the end of the album. What’s really cool is there are timestamps for you to read the paragraphs that perfectly goes along with the story. On the left the text is in Spanish and on the right it’s in English. Let me show you a screenshot, it’ll be easier for you to understand 😉

the story that goes along the music is delivered in a PDF when you purchase the album

While I won’t reveal the whole story, I’ll let you discover by yourself, I can just tell you you’ll be following the adventure of Ayira, a young Inuit girl accompanied by her friend Sekuru, a snow bison.

The story itself is well written and quite cute, but what’s really interesting is seeing how the story changes while the music is changing too. That’s why this idea of adding timestamps is pure genius.

So yes, as you can imagine, the music itself changes regularly to suits the story (or maybe the contrary? Would be interesting to know if they first composed the music or wrote the story 😉 ).

Mostly instrumental, you’ll be taken on a wide range of atmospheres and influences, from Krautrock to classic Psychedelic/Prog ala Pink Floyd and of course modern Heavy-Psych. And even if the main band is composed of 4 people playing the usual instruments (bass, guitar, drums), some more musicians are present in the different songs playing saxophone, flute, piano and more… All of this making a really beautiful Psychedelic album full of emotions thanks to the many variations in the music and the excellent songwriting.

I warmly recommend you to buy the album in order to get the PDF to experience fully Joss Jeffersøn’s debut album. Let’s also hope these guys will produce more of them with that same innovative way of creating a complete story around the music.

Congrats guys, I never saw a piece of art like that and I hope it can motivate other artists to come up with those kinds of original ideas.

Why is this album worth listening ?

It’s more than music only. It’s an original experience melting music and storytelling.
Though the music itself is stunning and has such well-crafted psychedelic atmospheres.

In what situation you should listen to this album ?

Of course buy the album and get the PDF to enjoy the full experience.

Something particular to note ?

As I’m a VR enthusiast I’d love to see this album being taken even further : a VR experience which would immerse ourselves fully into the story with great video animations and music. That would be amazing !