Today I want to release the bats, so I’m stoked to be sharing new music from YAMA UBA, the Bay Area-based post punk band from Akiko Sampson (Ötzi, Psychic Eye) and Winter Zora (Ötzi, Mystic Priestess). Their debut full-length record Silhouettes is out today via Psychic Eye Records and Ratskin Records — get it here. Silhouettes is a journey through dark, synth-driven nights and deathrock-infused days. Every track on this record brings a different atmosphere — sometimes seductive, sometimes confrontational, sometimes melancholic — and it also features a cover of “I’m in Love with a German Film Star” by The Passions. So hit play on Silhouettes below and enter the world of YAMA UBA.
“‘Silhouettes’ was meant to be a quickly written album,” Sampson states. “I just wanted to get out there and start touring. But as I worked on it, Winter joined the band, the pandemic came and went, and we had the luxury of creating music we wanted to hear without any outside pressures. We were completely in our own world in our magical little studio, so we rethought and rewrote over and over. The subject matter also shifted, reflecting what was important to us at different stages of our lives. Over time, we ended up redefining not just our music, but ourselves in the process.”
“As a whole, ‘Silhouettes’ reflects times of heartache, as well as times of perseverance and emotional breakthrough,” Sampson says. “It’s heart-forward and more vulnerable than we’ve ever been as songwriters, and I think that was absolutely necessary for us to get through some of our hard times. Ultimately, ‘Silhouettes’ is about celebrating personal transformation and self-discovery, and is a reckoning with the power of time.”
“‘Silhouettes’ is an expression of many different forms of transformation,” Zora explains. “It’s about shedding old layers, rebirth, transmuting energies and surrendering to the shadows in our life. We make peace with our shadow selves, and leave old things behind that no longer hold form for us anymore. Throughout the album, we’re honoring the shadows that disappear and reappear throughout our lives. It’s a reminder that we will always transform and change, but our silhouettes will always be with us.”
