Search - Yim Yames :: Tribute To

Just right

Howlinw | California, USA | 08/21/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Covers collections (and covers in general) are a tricky business. Artists who adhere too closely to their source material are branded as unoriginal, bringing nothing to the table (begging the question: why are we bothering with this?). Artists who veer sharply from the source material's sound and feel, however, run the risk of having their version labeled self-indulgent. I for one have always enjoyed a good cover, and I tend to give artists a lot of leeway in this area, but an overindulgent or redundant cover is always easy for me to spot. Yim Yames (or Jim James as most of us know him) has managed to tread the line just perfectly, turning in an exquisite covers set that proves him to be an excellent interpreter of songs.



What I love about this little collection is how Jim James really gets inside these songs, making them his own while maintaining an appropriate feeling of reverence for the material. He was obviously inspired by this music and clearly had developed a deep personal connection with it. The songs are re-imagined as haunting, beautiful almost-chamber-pop, with Jim's great soaring voice accompanied by minimal instrumentation. The collection really is a treasure, and as the warm summer days head towards a close I find myself listening to these Autumnal sounds more and more frequently. Somewhere between campfire sing-along and reverb-filled grain silo, the music echoes in a space all its own.



Worth every penny and then some, this is one of the better releases I have heard this year."

Can Jim James Do Any Wrong?

A. Woodley | 08/08/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I know it is spelled differently, but this is Jim James from My Morning Jacket. It is Jim James doing stripped down, slower versions of famous George Harrison songs. This EP was recorded in 2001 soon after George Harrison died. It is sounds like the slower stuff of My Moring Jacket. It is slow and haunting and beautiful. I feel that even though these are very different versions of the songs Jim James really captures the essence of George Harrison (especially when compared to the All Things Must Pass out takes). I really enjoy James' version of "Long, Long, Long" from the White Album which was a subdued and slower song already. Bottom line: If you are a My Morning Jacet fan, then you need to buy this album."

Beautiful stripped-down tribute to George Harrison

Paul Allaer | Cincinnati | 09/06/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Couple of things up front: Yim Yames (a/k/a Jim James of My Morning Jacket, one of my favorite bands of the last deacde) recorded this EP in 2001, shortly after George Harrison's passing. No idea why this was left on the shelves for 8 years, but better late than never (and also no idea why Jim James felt this had to be released as "Yim Yames").



"Tribute To" (6 tracks; 26 min.) brings 6 Harrison covers, with just Jim James playing acoustic guitar, with multitracking of his vocals, creating incredibly beautiful harmonies, check out the opening track "Long, Long, Long", which simply gives me shivers when listening to it. These recordings are awash in reverb, not surprisingly really if you sompare this to My Morning Jacket's "At Down" album from the same year this EP was recorded.



Jim James reinterprets the Harrison tunes beautifully, check out "Behind That Locked Door" and "Love You To", for example. The weakest track on here for me is the cover of "My Sweet Lord", which is too predictable, but in all fairness, it's a minor quib. It's a shame these recordings were left unreleased for so long. But now we can get to enjoy them, and what a delight they are. Back to the present: My Morning Jacket has been pretty much on hiatus the last year or so, after extensive touring behind their "Evil Urges" album, and Jim James got involved with Monters of Folk, a new one-off(?) band also containing Conor Oberst and M. Ward, and that album is coming out very shortly. I've heard a couple of songs of it already, and it sounds very enticing."