O Yuki Conjugate

by Jason Ankeny
The British experimental ambient unit O Yuki Conjugate was formed in Nottingham in 1982 by multi-instrumentalists Andrew Hulme and Roger Horberry; inspired by the atmospheric guitar instrumentals of the Durutti Column, they began experimenting with keyboards and tape loops, adding percussion to the mix before debuting with the soundscapes of 1984s Scene in Mirage. A three-year gap preceded the release of the follow-up, Into the Dark Water, the first of many extended absences from the contemporary music scene; only in 1991 did O Yuki Conjugate again resurface, issuing Peyote on the Projekt label. Undercurrents (In Dark Water), which assembled both older material and latter-day recordings, appeared a year later. After 1994s superb Equator, the group released Sunchemical, a collection of remixes. Hulme and Horberry additionally collaborated on dance music under the name Symetrics, with the former also heading the groups A Small Good Thing and Sons of Silence as well as recording Fell with Paul Schütze.