Yoo Doo Right – From the Heights of Our Pastureland (Top Albums 2024)

Yoo Doo Right is a Montreal creature that has reached full maturity this year. A banner year indeed: From the Heights of Our Pastureland and The Sacred Fuck EP, released in November and March respectively.

The first recording begins with the treatment of a short-wave recording, cross-faded with a drone and a vocal excerpt somewhere between a triturated Johnny Cash ballad or an Angelo Badalamenti country metaversion. And then drone again, this time sprinkled with synthetic trills, then the sounds of a demonstration, then Slavic music with drone, then a choral song in an upward spiral, and then lots of other things until the rock groove settles in and puts the pedal to the metal and maintains it in linear brutality, with very little variation.

The album is even more substantial, with each proposal distinct, original and inspired. Yoo Doo Right’s sources can be traced back to Can’s krautrock, also in drone and post-rock frequency saturation, in industrial hammering, also in the treatment of field recordings or archives triturated at their best, even in space rock, notably at the end of the autumnal album.

Mantra, prayer, trance and hypnosis are all linked to this rock practice foded on a stainless binarity in rhythm. The addition of acoustic instruments like the filtered trumpet (two on stage on December 6) further refines the overall texture, whether in the studio or in front of an audience. You can’t call it post-rock, but it seems that Yoo Doo Right, from the heights of its pasture, is carving out a place for itself in the altitudes of trance rock, with a view to acquiring major status. Soon to join Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Tortoise and Swans?