CD Review
Artist: Yoav
Title: Charmed & Strange
Record Label: Universal Music
Released: March 4^th 2008

5 Stars

Reviewed By: Kindah Mardam Bey

Name your child Yoav and you have given voice to a commanding presence. So it has happened that newcomer to the music industry, Yoav, has managed to be that commanding presence with his first full-length studio album Charmed & Strange. Not usually in my nature to give five stars to a first time album (after all, respect is earned over time), I was easy to give Yoav the full credit for such a phenomenally unique sound and style that will have you expanding how you think and feel about music.

Yoav has had a varied and nomadic past; living in Israel, South Africa, London, New York, and Montreal for stints. Charmed & Strange is too hard to pigeon-hole into a certain ‘sounds like' tagline, but what the album can be related to is Yoav's travelling influences. Each country Yoav has been exposed to have their own distinct musical influences, and somehow he has managed to merge all these countries into one progressive and enticing enigmatic album. So you have the urging rhythms of South African drums and the pulsing mantra of London's trance music, melded with the rustic artistry of the Canadian guitar effect and earthen echo of a New York ‘been there, done that' reality. In simpler terms, Yoav is a culmination of his past influences and he has managed to envelope them together in a sound as progressive as what Coldplay brought to the table. Yoav won't be for everyone, but neither is Bob Dylan. Sometimes originals can be frowned upon by traditionalist society, but no matter whether you like or don't like the originals, the talent is always undeniable.  My opinion is that Yoav's lyrics and rhythmic banging on his guitar is simply delicious and provoking. 

From "Adore Adore" to the lush dance track "Club Thing," tracing down to the poignant "One By One" and the commanding "There Is Nobody" and onward to the catchy "Beautiful Lie," to the hypnotic "Angel And The Animal," the journey of diverse songs all facing a specific zenith is what makes Charmed & Strange so fascinating to listen to. The lyrics are well worth mentioning as well, full of double meaning and lightly laced statements on society; each song is as memorable as the last.

I identify with Yoav's earlier childhood movement, as I was condensed to much the same, but where my youth failed to observe and my coming of age has shown me, we are made from the sum of our parts and that is often the histories we have absorbed of each new place we have entered, each new experience we have lived, and each new lesson we have been taught through the discomfort of being a fish out of water. Yoav has managed to surmise through his music the amalgamation of his experiences and how they influenced him; prolific, cerebral, delightful, and almost spiritual at times. Yoav's Charmed & Strange is like an ancient, indecipherable, street urchin in some primordial mythology, delicately placed with wisdom and otherworldliness into a new beginning.

Adore Adore
Club Thing
Live
One By One
There Is Nobody
Wake Up
Beautiful Lie
Angel And The Animal
Sometimes...
Yeah, The End
Where Is My Mind?