Note: Yves Tumor is pronounced EVE too-MOHR.
Inside the very title of Yves Tumor’s single “Gospel for a New Century,” we see a manifesto wrapped inside a pun. The title alludes, first and foremost, to the awakening of a generation and the realization of a new form of art that fearlessly embraces self-expression. However, in tandem with Tumor’s embrace of love is an homage to the root of all popular music today: gospel. Blues. And from the very first thumping bass note, we can glimpse a sonic journey that gazes headlong into the 21st Century, yet which is ushered ever forward by the rhythms of the 20th.
The sonic message conveyed by the song is further reinforced and elaborated upon by the music video. We see Tumor dressed as Satan, backed by a V-formation of backup dancers wearing lamb masks. Modern cinematography is juxtaposed with fuzzy, static-soaked VHS footage. Like channels being changed on a TV, the rapid vacillation between these two lenses presents an important statement about Tumor’s music. It dabbles in the classic, soul-rooted funk of the 20th Century, but it’s not James Brown or Sly Stone. It’s psychedelic, certainly, but not quite in the manner of Pink Floyd or Love. Of course, psychedelic funk has been around just as long as psychedelia or funk, so Yves Tumor certainly didn’t invent it. Yet, the eclecticism of Tumor’s songwriting traverses such genres, meandering between them to create something new out of a familiar mold. Perhaps we can hear that “funk-with-a-modern-sound” vibe most closely in Childish Gambino’s “Awaken, My Love!” (2016), of “Redbone” fame, but even that does not approach the introspection and visceral immersion of Tumor’s oeuvre.
With such imagery in the music video, we come to understand the attitude behind the song; after a breakup, the singer has rejected the frilly aspects of romance and embraces its more gloomy, salacious undertones. Love is not all cherries and cream: it is tempestuous, it is passionate, and it is dark and brooding. Avid animé fans will quickly catch onto the subtle allusions in the title card and song title. Tumor pays homage to the series Neon Genesis Evangelion, whose Japanese name (Shinseiki Evangerion, romanized) literally means “New Century Gospel.”
It’s in large part this grandeur, this Prince-like ostentation with a Gothic Rock twist, that aggrandizes Yves Tumor beyond a jack-of-all-trades who can conjure funk and disco rhythms in a way that is uniquely modern and sui generis. They (Tumor) are a showman whose movements and emotions and expressions belong distinctly to themselves. We can peer into their pain vicariously, accepting in vain their invitation to indulge in that mad stupor we call love. But like the wind, we cannot hold it and keep it as our own; we can only feel it stab us in quick currents. And that’s precisely how love is. We experience it through other people, yet somehow, love is untouchable, and love to one person can be something completely different to another.
When the chorus arrives, we hear Tumor rasp a lovelorn threnody:
This ain’t by design, girl
Take it softer
You know I’m out my mind, girl
Don’t make this harder
Come and light my fire, baby
How much longer ’til December?
Say what you really mean
Did you catch it? There it is! The phrase “light my fire” is so ubiquitous in soul as if to be its own artist. And here, Tumor pays homage to that tradition: from Stevie Wonder to Lauryn Hill to J Dilla, lighting one’s fire has been used time and time again to symbolize stirring affection in the beholder. We also come to understand how Yves Tumor characterizes love as something not at all “designed” — love is about madness that has no cure except time. Only the chillwinds of heartbreak can extinguish its mighty forces, and even then, it returns. Even after being let down, Tumor still longs for “December.”
The song flips a short sample from 당신은 무얼 몰라 (“You Don’t Know”), a highly obscure funk track by Lee Son Ga (1978). Tumor completely reinvents the horn motif from the sample to create an entirely new melody, altogether concocting a commanding cacophony of dissonant brass instruments. Underneath we hear the bass walking every which way, swinging up and down akin to the rhythm of a subdued heartbeat. The sound is unmistakable, yet it feels so distant in nature. As is customary in psychedelic funk, the snare drum is very thick and even—almost a muted shout—and the bass is incredibly dense and steady; the two sounds fight an epic battle, symbolic even of the internal conflict between the channeled logic of the mind (snare) and the erratic, perfunctory passion of the heart and soul (bass).
In Heaven to a Tortured Mind (2020), Yves Tumor truly comes into their own. But the opening track and lead single, “Gospel for a New Century,” truly cements their reputation as an all-around connoisseur of ‘70s and ‘80s funk, disco, and psychedelia, as well as ‘00s electronic and dance music. Truly no two albums, let alone songs, from Yves Tumor are the same. Tumor’s music, much like its subject matter, is as capricious and indescribable as love itself. Stream the album here: https://yves-tumor.ffm.to/htatm
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