Madchester scene, 90's trance & house, disco, aceeed, space rock, jungle, Talking Heads, Depeche Mode & other synth pop, and whatever used to come to our freaking minds in the heat of the moment.
Sounds Like
Happy mystical rhythmical vibrations sent from outer space to make your ass free so that your mind would follow.
Yaputhma Sound System, officialy abbreviated as YaSoSy (pronounced yah-soh-soo), was founded in November 1995 and dissolved in the summer of 1997.
A motley company of very different-minded participants, the band was founded on the wave of rave explosion in Latvia, when it finally broke through here (10 years after being invented in Detroit and Chicago). The concept of musical circus was applied to dance music, resulting in a unique blend of trance/house/techno/jungle-like improvisations and songs, played completely live, using only guitars, drums, ancient soviet synths, turntables and effects, brass and assorted percussion. It recembled "dance-punk" of today and "space-rock" of 90s; but YaSoSy was always tongue-in-cheek and open to any possible experiments, remaining psychedelic, bizzare, frivolous and simply fun as much as possible.
A few recordings from 1995-96 exist, of a very different musical and technical quality. The best tech quality offers studio-recorded "official" album "Rigas Disco" (Riga Disco, Riga = capital of Latvia), which at the same time does not represent YaSoSy from the best side (some tracks are too polished, dully recorded or played). YaSoSy was best experienced live, and the best recordings were made either live in clubs, or "live at the rehearsal basement". Such is the "unofficial" album "Space Trip 2 Yaputhma", which showcases the wild dancefloor energy, the lo-fi approach and the eclecticism.
YaSoSy, not only thanks to their music, but also unique image and lifestyle (which included promoting the psychedelic/faux-queer world view, confusing audience and journalists with written fantasmagoric & cosmogonic manifestations, and generally playing the clowns at any occasion) gave a kick to the stagnant Latvian underground scene of mid 90s. Perhaps if Latvia wasn't so alienated from the rest of the world, things could have gone more successfully for YaSoSy...
Despite having a reputation of kinda "rave prophets", YaSoSy was always promiscuously genre-hopping. A typical example can be this beautiful video shot by the band's bassist Bubba-H on 16mm in 1996, "Lonely":
Oh, it's nice to see YaSoSy here! I agree to what's written above - it was a great fun, yet having some additional impact on the Riga's scene. Well, I guess, it was simply unique, and these songs bring back nice and warm memories... For me personally, probably the most vivid memories are from the gig in that Get Recycled gig in a factory. (just considering now - maybe it'd be worth to make some memorial myspace site for Sirke as well?).
