"You Are Beautiful At All Times" by Yppah
As my income skyrocketed from a large negative number (college) to a number above the poverty line, I have celebrated by buying music. Of all of that music, of all of the music I have heard in the past year, You Are Beautiful At All Times by Yppah is my undisputed favorite album.
This album reaches through your speakers and firmly demands that you describe it as effortlessly elegant. The type of effortless elegance that requires not only a talented producer, but one with an endless attention to minutiae. Someone who can detect the faintest unnatural tremor in an essentially perfect song, and who can then fix it. Someone who is willing to craft perfection in not only one of his tracks, or half his tracks, but who imbued each and every track on the album with something special.
The music is electronic, perhaps described best as trip-hop (although small touches like an unexpected guitar turn the search for a definitive label into an uncomfortable progress). It is an album you can listen to while working quietly, or that you might listen to while taking a jog. Its music at its most emotionally ambiguous--there are no lingual cues from lyrics--and you can impose any emotional nuance upon the tracks with great success.
The album does make excellent use of language, though, in the names of its tracks. Each title affixes a simple, but important, thought or feeling to the track. Ending With You makes me think of finding someone special, and the ensuing gestalt of joy and peace. Again With Subtitles makes me think of being overwhelmed and confused, and then looking back and understanding in hindsight. The Subtleties That Count reminds me that life, and this album, is about deciding on what details to focus on.
If you want to roam instead of being guided, give this album a listen. You Are Beautiful At All Times is an exceptional piece of work.