Interview with YOMBE

On November 24th, they released their new album, GOOOD, a mix of pop, soul and electronic sounds which captures the desire to communicate, to give a free expression to that art that unites them and through which they met.

Discover with us the Italian duo YOMBE, a name you'll sure hear about in our Italian music panorama. For the occasion of this interview, they created for us a special playlist that narrates the inspirations behind their latest album.

#1 Hi Alfredo and Cyen, or maybe we have to say YOMBE. Who you are and what we have to know about you?

Alfredo: We come from Naples, and we met while we were playing in another band, a year later we were a couple. YOMBE was born in 2015 in Milan, where we had an apartment with Lorenzo (Colapesce) in the Lambrate area and then we started to write our first ideas.

#2 You are considered a revelation of the italian music scene. How do you feel about this? Were you awaiting this moment or there were other plans?

Cyen: Beh, we are happy about this perception! To be honest, we do not feel "under the spotlight", but we are happy about how we are working on the project. We believe that it is good to reach the goals gradually and not hastily so that we can work first on our own and shape our goals on our music and not on another. YOMBE was born like a game, we had different project that doesn't include the other directly, but after the launch of Vulkaan - our first song, we soon realized that the project could have become something really important, and so it was. Currently, our days are completely devoted to this and almost nothing else.

#3 Last month you have announced GOOOD, your first official album, anticipated by Nothing new to me. Why is it special? The pop, soul and electronic sound, proves current, avant-garde does not totally reflect what is the music we are accustomed to listening in our country. Why?

Alfredo: GOOOD is an intimate work and, though the texts do not talk only about our relationship such as for our first EP, we think that it's more our, personal. The title is connected to a feeling that frightens us:  we have to prove to be "Good" daily in something, tiring towards the finish line to get on the podium. But once we climb, we forget the important things, we do not recognize our self anymore and we do not remember the motives that led us to run. This explains the link with the Olympic / sports imagery. From a sonorous point of view, there are definitely points of contact with what is happening in the world and not with our country. From our side, it's a limit for us referring exclusively to an Italian audience and, above all, we try to exploit at least the positive sides of globalization, including the ability to communicate with universal codes.
Italian people do not talk English so much and the persons need to sing the songs squirrel, they want new hymns and often the generational slogans, and for sure an English text arrives late when the brain has to first translate and decode it. We say that this "emotional delay" is not a benefit for those who do not sing in Italian.

#4 You will open some Ghemon concerts. What do you think of the italian rap scene? Has it connections with you or not?

Cyen: We will follow Ghemon for 4 concerts during the 'Mezzanotte Tour', and we're so happy for this because we're his fan. We are not updated on rap scene so we haven't a definite and definitive thought in this regard. Certainly Ghemon is a very refined project with a really personal sound that brings us to the warm atmosphere of Neffa and I Messaggeri Della Dopa, and we also believe that his mus, in this case, e goes beyond rap, and maybe for this reason we like it so much. The melodies are pop and stretched, and the sound is soft and super-international. In common with him, and maybe others, we certainly have the desire to experiment and offer to the public a sophisticated pop and sometimes less immediate, full of authenticity and without extra-musical superstructures.

#5 You've performed during the last Milan Music Week. This event has given you the opportunity to meet other musical realities of both the national and international scene. How was this experience? What did particularly catch your attention?

Alfredo: The festival is always a good occasion to create relations, link, and enrich with the diversity and the experience of big artists. Then we were amazed at the fact that in those days some of the most interesting things of the time we're going to town like Thundercat, SEVDALIZA, Moses Sumney to name a few. We hope that there will be more attention and curiosity towards what are the tendencies out of this country and that, in the respect of the tradition and the culture that distinguish us, this bubble, that closes us into an indigenous, self-referential and retrograde market, will be a break.

#6 You are a couple in music and in life. Pros and cons?

Cyen: Pros: our communication is really streamlined; we have a lot of confidence with, it is not afraid to tell us what we think of the work that one of us has done. For this reason, we're so fast during the arrangement and the writing moment. Cons: It's natural that in a couple there is the need of spaces. Beh, we work together so they are more close or, sometimes, they're totally disappeared. Fortunately, we are pretty good at managing this thing, and the little time we have free we dedicate it to our passions that are not the music!

YOMBE portraits by Fabrizio Vatieri.