The German language, as it often does, has a perfect word to describe 1987’s One Second.
Literally, ‘Kopfkino’ means ‘head cinema’, and encapsulates the vivid imagery we sometimes enjoy, when suitably provoked, like a movie in our mind. Yello’s fifth album is a masterclass in ‘Kopfkino’, from opener La Habanera’s Latin flavours, vocalist Dieter Meier conjuring scenes from a gripping Cuban spy drama – “Pedro Comacho, the former informer of the secret police, is still standing outside the club, pretending to be blind” – to closing instrumental L’Hôtel, its echoes of David Bowie’s Low-era Warszawa like incidental music for an Ian Fleming script. “Where all the other Bonds end,” one might say, “this one begins.”