Yelka’s “1976” is the kind of album that sounds like it’s wearing flared pants, sporting aviator sunglasses, and whispering cryptic epiphanies about the cosmos into your ear at a vinyl shop in 1970s Berlin. But let’s be clear: this album isn’t nostalgia. It’s a painstakingly crafted “homage” – the kind where you sense the band has dug into the record crates, pulled out the most esoteric stuff from 1976, and come out on the other side with something that’s both tongue-in-cheek and earnest, a delicate balance only few can strike without face-planting into pretension.

Yelka’s Berlin trio (drummer Christian Obermaier, guitarist Daniel Meteo, and bassist/singer Yelka Wehmeier) positions itself as post-krautrock revivalists, but they’re much more than that. They’re time travellers, conjuring up an era when punk was still underground, krautrock had been absorbed into art rock’s fabric, and disco was only just becoming self-aware. And then they smirk knowingly as they throw all of these references into a blender and serve it chilled with a side of cosmic bewilderment.

Opening track “Ringe” is a fleeting 1:28 of ambience, like walking into a hazy, sun-streaked memory of 1976 that never quite settles into place. Then comes “Petrichor”, where Yelka’s voice – soft, understated, and haunting – channels Fleetwood Mac in a way that feels both reverent and completely irreverent. It’s the kind of vocal performance that suggests Yelka herself is in on the cosmic joke: she knows this track is a tip of the hat to the Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks of yesteryear, but she’s too cool to let it be just that. The track aches in all the right ways, but it never quite reaches for the melodrama, keeping it at arm’s length like a knowing shrug.

The Alan Parsons Project comparison, floated by guitarist Daniel Meteo in the album’s notes, is a wink and a nod to the listener. “1976” is, indeed, a bit of a concept album, but it’s not going to hit you over the head with lofty sci-fi themes. Instead, it offers “Saturn” – a near 10-minute cosmic disco journey that could easily soundtrack a space cruise through a shimmering asteroid field. It’s indulgent, hypnotic, and a little bit ridiculous – but only if you aren’t already swept away by its quiet brilliance. There’s a patient propulsion to it, like the album’s slow-motion heart beating underneath all the alien textures.

And then there’s “Das Goldene Kalb”, where the disco influence creeps in even further, though it’s twisted into something Beefheart might have conjured in a funkier mood. It’s the most playful track here, embracing disco’s awkward, alien phase, as if to remind us that we once thought this genre was weird before it became a global juggernaut.

Yelka’s sense of humor is part of what makes “1976” so irresistible. “Caravan” could be a postcard from Amsterdam, but it feels more like a glammed-up, campy nod to the internationalism of that era’s music. The song titles themselves – “Hanover” and “Saturn” – feel like inside jokes you want to be let in on, and the playful kitsch is held together by deeply considered musicianship. Each song swings between genres like it’s changing clothes in a thrift store dressing room – proggy one minute, folky the next, cosmic disco the next.

But for all its cheekiness, “1976” also has its tender moments. “Petrichor” and “Das Goldene Kalb” radiate a kind of wistful nostalgia, reminding us that this isn’t just a danceable concept piece – it’s an album with heart. Yelka’s voice is a hidden weapon that needs more room to roam on future releases, but when it appears, it’s as captivating as it is unassuming.

The biggest strength of “1976” is how well it captures that weird, magical moment in pop music history when all these disparate genres were spinning in their own directions, colliding and overlapping in unpredictable ways. Yelka manages to evoke that time without being enslaved to it. There’s never a moment on this album where it feels like they’re trying too hard to sound like the past – they’re simply “channeling” it, with enough distance to wink at its absurdities.

“1976” is an album that knows exactly what it is: a gleaming, off-kilter time capsule that never fully takes itself seriously but still manages to resonate deeply. For fans of krautrock, disco, prog, and anything else that might appear on the vinyl shelf of an acid-drenched flea market in 1976, this album is a treat – equal parts brainy, silly, and groovy. It’s like walking through the past with your most delightfully cynical friend, the one who wears bell-bottoms ironically but secretly loves them. (CHAIN D.L.K.)

Berlin’s most productive band – no less than 10 albums in three years is their mission – Yelka announces its second album release in the current season. We are talking about Berlin’s finest trio in terms of Postkraut, with drummer Christian Obermaier, guitarist Daniel Meteo and bassist/singer Yelka Wehmeier. After their timeless debut album “Nowhere Jive” we now travel back to the year “1976“, the title of their second LP.
Yelka are oldskool in their promotional approach avoiding social media, Instead they play residencies in Hamburg and Berlin with more international residencies to follow. Daniel Meteo is better known as the manager of Apparat, music publisher (Random Noize) and label maker (Shitkatapult), Yelka Wehmeier most recently as a bassist in the first line-up of Patrick Wagner’s band Gewalt, and Christian Obermaier, one of the most sought-after drummers in the Berlin indie world, playing amongst other in SchneiderTM’s band. Christian and Yelka played together in the Berlin post-rock band EAGLE BOSTON until 2013! YELKA now sounds much more brittle, minimalist. Which might be due to Daniel Meteo’s Magic Band-like guitar playing. But also due to the welcome absence of synthesizer pads.

When listening to the first YELKA productions, all the artfully crumbly bands of Post Rock suddenly come back to mind. The Sea & Cake or Karate, for example. But also musical harbingers like Captain Beefheart, Can or the electric Davis between Kraut and Jazz! Fun in the church-A&R Maurice Summen was so enthusiastic about the already recorded material that he spontaneously offered the trio a 10-album deal. So in 2023 alone, three YELKA albums will be released on Fun in the church. By the end of 2025, all 10 albums should then be released. The first album is titled “Nowhere Jive” was released on March 31, 2023.
“1976” in this case means a strangely great time in (pop) music history, when Punk was still avant-garde, Kraut was already cannibalized by Art Rock, Disco was there but foreign, and Folk was experiencing a second spring! Exactly: dare more Joni Mitchell!
Add to that great song titles like “Hanover” (Hello SPD!) “Caravan” (Hello Amsterdam!) or “Saturn” (Hello Cosmic Disco!) – soaring between Prog and Beat. In songs like “Das Goldene Kalb” or the Interludes for in between we can even hear some Disco and the late Beefheart playing in our ears. Worth noting is as well the Fleetwood Mac bowing number “Petrichor” with Yelka on YELKA as the enchanting voice, which we would like to hear more often on future albums, please.

“‘1976‘ is our Alan Parsons project album,” says guitarist Daniel Meteo about the finished work, that comes with an illustrated perfume bottle as the cover and a certain hipster compatibility for all times. Who doesn’t like to smell good all the time?!
Verdict: A delicate abstract intro sets the tone of that moment before a band comes to the stage and take their places and as ‘Rings’ fades the band begins. A wonderful post-rock/post-Kraut album with a cool improvisational flow to the performances, that gives the impression the band members are well rehearsed enough on the compositions that they follow the structure of the pieces, but move around freely within them. 1976 has a feel-good energy that fills one with an gentle optimism and has a wonderful uplifting quality throughout, even in its gentler moments. Only two albums in and Yelka are laying down some solid postkraut that will not disappoint. (BACKSEAT MAFIA)

We remain in fertile Berlin while changing musical coordinates, with a very prolific band like Yelka with their new ‘1976’ for Fun In The Church.

Our band plays, just to give you some co-ordinates as the territory is vast, a very interesting and varied post krautrock, well composed and well played.

The band lands us in 1976, a very special year for music, with punk taking shape, krautrock was entering its artrock phase, folk was reinventing itself and funk was still going strong.

The album is a beautiful excursus into kraut, prog and rock, with a bit of funk and a lot of pop, all in a very free and enjoyable assemblage. There are no constraints, the freedom flows with the sound, we move seamlessly from kraut to kosmische to the purest, unadulterated maths. “1976” is an album that is born and grows totally free with a very engaging rhythm and very advanced sound solutions that always put the listener at ease.

There is something for everyone, from those who love the more instrumental and experimental stuff to those who still have that irreducible beautiful prog sound of the seventies in their ears, which just and thankfully does not want to go away.

Moreover, Yelka are attempting to reach the goal of ten records in three years, and in addition to quantity there is plenty of quality here, and you can hear it in every step. It comforts and warms the soul to listen to a free and unfettered record, with very warm and lively music, livid in an analogue way, in an era of great flattening, remarkable things are there just by looking for them, and this one is really worth it. (IYE WEBZINE)

Würde das Debüt dieser lässigen neue Band nicht aus Berlin, sondern aus Brooklyn kommen, man würde sie bereits als nächstes großes Ding feiern und an ihr das ohnehin anstehende Revival des Post-Rock-Genres festmachen. Könnte man natürlich trotzdem, denn kleine Brötchen backt die Berliner Indie-Supergroup nicht: Ganze zehn Alben sollen bis 2025 veröffentlicht werden, zwei weitere allein noch dieses Jahr. Yelka sind nach der Bassistin und Sängerin Yelka Wehmeier benannt, ehemals Mitglied bei der Punk-Noise-Band Gewalt. Die Gitarre, in verspielter Anlehnung an Vorbilder wie Sam Prekop und »Magic Band«-Virtuose Alex St. Clair, bedient Apparat-Manager, Labelmitbetreiber (Shitkatapult) und Gastro-Entrepreneur Daniel Meteo, am Schlagzeug sitzt Christian Obermaier, mit Wehmeier einst bei der Post-Rockband Eagle Boston aktiv. Schon diese weithin unbekannte Band probte einen Fusion-Sound aus Psychedelik- und Krautrock, der hier gewitzt verfeinert wird. Manchmal postuliert Wehmeier Text-Manifeste (»Don’t forget to move! Lose yourself!«) in den nie allzu monotonen Flow dieser »Claustro Disco« hinein. Yelkas Musik wird als »Postkraut« bezeichnen – sie ist genauso kurios cool, wie dieses Wort klingt.(7.2) (SPIEGEL ONLINE)

Mit seinen Anleihen beim Krautrock wirkt das Berliner Trio Yelka auf seinem Debütalbum »Nowhere Jive« zwar gewissermaßen zeitgemäß, zugleich erscheint der Sound der Band aber herrlich aus der Zeit gefallen, leichtfüßig und selbstgenügsam, reduziert und gänzlich unaffektiert.

Einerseits erinnert ihre angejazzte Variante des Post-Rock an die Chicagoer Genre-Ikonen Tortoise und The Sea and Cake, die ihre musikalischen Höhepunkte um die Jahrtausendwende feierten. Andererseits wirkt die Musik von Yelka, in klassischer Besetzung zumeist auf Gitarre, Bass und Schlagzeug beschränkt, gleichsam eingebettet in die Berliner Indie-Musikgeschichte um Plattenfirmen wie Monika Enterprise, Morr Music und Kitty-Yo.
Mit Blick auf das bisherige Treiben der Mitglieder von Yelka ist dies auch keine Überraschung. Die Band ist benannt nach ihrer Bassistin und gelegentlichen Sängerin Yelka Wehmeier, die als Gründungsmitglied bei den ersten Singles und Konzerten der Gruppe Gewalt ebenfalls am Bass mitwirkte.
Der Musikstil ist zwar eher albumorientiert als singlekompatibel, dennoch findet sich mit »Charisma Flight« ein herausragendes Stück auf der LP.
Schlagzeuger Christian Obermaier wiederum arbeitete in der Vergangenheit unter anderem mit Barbara Morgenstern und mit Schneider TM; Gitarrist Daniel Meteo ist außer für seine eigenen Electronica-Alben auch als Mitbetreiber des Berliner Elektro-Labels Shitkatapult bekannt.
»Nowhere Jive« besteht zum größten Teil aus instrumentalen Stücken, und wenn Wehmeier singt, dann oft repetitiv; auf der ersten Auskopplung »Petrol« wiederholt sie lediglich das titelgebende Wort, während Meteos Gitarrenläufe immer wieder in dissonante Akkorde münden.
Der Musikstil ist zwar eher albumorientiert als singlekompatibel, dennoch findet sich mit »Charisma Flight« ein herausragendes Stück auf der LP, bei dem sich über einem stoischen Shuffle-Beat und Wehmeiers subtilem Bass die Gitarre und eine Orgel gegenseitig umspielen und dabei nach und nach hin zu einer Klimax steigern. Ein zweites Yelka-Album mit dem Titel »1976« soll bereits im Sommer erscheinen. (JUNGLE WORLD)

Aus dem Rahmen fallendes Album, das im entschlackten Trio-Look (Gitarre, Schlagzeug, Bass) ohne ein Gramm Fett zuviel, ohne Plüsch und Brimborium und elektronische Zutaten eine großartige instrumentale Essenz präsentiert, die in dieser Qualität schwer beeindruckt, auch weil spielerisch gnadenlos auf nicht ausgetretenen Pfaden unterwegs. Ein kunstvoller, an den Chicago-Postrock der 90er angelehnter Sound mit jazzigen Zutaten, ungeraden Rhythmen, exquisitem Zusammenspiel und minimalistischer Überzeugungskraft und intensiver Dynamik. Kunstvolle Fast-Instrumentals, die wie eine Mischung aus The Sea & Cake, Tortoise, Fugazi und Krautrockgarnitur klingen. Am virtuos gespielten Schlagzeug sitzt Christian Obermaier (einst in der band von Schneider TM), die Gitarre manövriert äusserst eindrucksvoll mit einem sehr eigenen Sound und einer ebenso eigenen Art des Biss Daniel Meteo (Manager von Apparat, Musikverleger (Random Noize) und Labelmacher (Shitkatapult, The Album Label), dazu am Bass Yelka Wehmeier, zuletzt als Bassistin in der ersten Besetzung von Patrick Wagners Gewalt dabei, die mit stoischen, in warmem Sound gehaltenen fingerfertige Bassfiguren als Kleber des Ganzen fungiert. Das exquisite Zusammenspiel von Bass und Drums erklärt sich aus dem Wirken von Obermaier und Wehmeier bei der 2013 in der sträflich übersehenen Berliner Post-Rock-Band Eagle Boston. Klasse Album! (FLIGHT 13)