TECHNICOLOR COVET

(2020)

Guitar music has evolved to the point where elite-level technicality has spilled out of shred and into all-new contests where the virtuosity can augment every root and branch of the song. Of this new generation, Yvette Young is a guitar player nonpareil. What Covet play is sometimes described as math-rock, but – even if mathematics is one of the few paragons of truth in the universe - that terms seems a little reductive, ignoring or downplaying the soul behind Young’s note choices. Yvette jokes that she plays “detail rock” and there are lot of details. What she does with her citrus-coloured signature Ibanez Talman does need to be witnessed in person or on video, if only to be believed. Her two-handed tapping and fingerstyle wrings all the juice from the instrument, tracks such as Parrot serving fresh sounds never heard before. Cutting her teeth on violin and piano, she is another example, if needed, that playing another instrument besides guitar can only make you a better player. Technicolor is hypnotic, bewildering and life-affirming, with Young’s melodic sensibility laid over alien-jazz rhythms creating a conversation that you can’t help but earwig on. There are no vocals but... It kinda feels like there are, right?