The second album by Yalla Miku, a loose-but-tight collective of culture colliders located in Geneva, follows their self-titled debut from spring 2023. Simply titled 2, it showcases a group who are forever alive to the potential of change, be that in an internal sense or in the world at large; who shape necessary modifications to their advantage on a 10-song collection that dances through fields of postpunk, Afrofunk, disco, dub and Krautrock, with an East African touch – and so effortlessly, you might catch yourself forgetting how bold and ambitious this sound really is. Yalla Miku remains, by design, an expression of the creativity found in Geneva’s musical underground. The project was founded by two long-term compadres, Cyril Yeterian (vocals, guitar and self-styled ‘UFO banjo’) and Cyril Bondi (drums): namesakes, hence calling their folk-gone-noise duo Cyril Cyril, and like minds as well. Cyril Yeterian also runs the Bongo Joe label (both Yalla Miku albums have been released on it), as well as the record shop of the same name – indeed, they’re currently toasting their ten-year anniversary. All of which makes him rather well placed to assess which musicians in the locale can climb on an idea and make it fly. That’s how he met Samuel Ades, a refugee whose efforts to start a new life in Switzerland drew him to Yeterian’s store, where he’d play his favoured krar (a lyre-type stringed instrument popular in Eritrea, Ades’ home country) and sing. He does both those things on this new album, notably on Embeyto and La Tour Eiffel. And then there’s Yalla Miku’s two new members, Emma Souharce and Louise Knobil. Synth/electronics whiz Emma is a more than recognised presence in Genevan experimental circles, including Boxing Noise, an ensemble also featuring Cyril Bondi. Louise, from Lausanne north-east of Geneva, crafts idiosyncratic, punk-spiky vocal jazz pieces (recording as Knobil) and adapts that most ably for the Yalla Miku outlook, switching from double bass to bass guitar. Between both albums, personnel change in this band has been comprehensive. On Yalla Miku, they were a seven-piece; for 2, they’re a quintet. Emma and Louise came in, four members left: Simone Aubert, Anouar Baouna, Vincent Bertholet and Ali Bouchaki. One upshot of this upheaval is Cyril Yeterian embracing his Middle Eastern familial heritage and upbringing – from Anatolia to Lebanon via Syria, he says – and singing in Arabic for the first time. From this we get Al Sayf (a brooding album opener on the theme of religion as a tool of power, almost gothic in spite of Bondi turning in a shuffling, halfway-to-Afrobeat drum performance); Scarlett Chien (chaabi gone psych-rock: a drawn, droning organ meets call-and-response vocals with a sprinkle of Autotune); and Al 3Mal (more jivey back’n’forth vox, promptly upended by doomy guitar and a chaotic noise midsection from Emma). With all involved playing with new musicians, the five members didn’t rush into recording 2, using informal sessions in their own studio to get a feel of what they might do together before arranging the songs. The recording itself – all done live, even Emma’s electronic contributions – was comparatively breezed through, to Yeterian’s pleasant surprise. Everyone in Yalla Miku sings at some point, which helps to make them seem like the unified entity they are. As well as Yeterian’s Arabic excursions, as detailed above, Emma and Louise take the French-language reins, Maximum Self-Care (synth arpeggios and brisk-paced drums; sombre, but with a groove) and Post-Aventures (something like The Ex gone garage rock) are both written and sung by Emma. They bring a new lyrical angle to the group: arch, cynical even, with punchlines and a Dadaist influence but a tenderness all the while. Embeyto is named after Samuel’s hometown, and on it he muses on certain Eritrean traditions related to marriage, observed through 21st century eyes. Its grave spoken verses are in French, the wailed, affecting refrains in the Tigrinya language, and its slow, eerie unfurling is enlivened by a belting bout of industrial funk percussion. Samuel’s other big stamp of personality comes at the end, with La Tour Eiffel. Set to knotty dubbed-up postpunk and FX-blasted psychedelic flute, it’s his own story – that of a refugee who’s recently been granted legal status, can cross borders again, and so wants to check out the Eiffel Tower. Having changed their form substantially before making this album, Yalla Miku also mutate and evolve many times over during it. They’re a folk outfit, a dance-party band, a gang of rockers, balladeers, improvisors and general intercontinental musical magpies who know (and show) there’s no reason to limit one’s horizons in this day and age.