Powered by the force of Japanese technology and a pair of pixelated Italian plumbers, Yoshi have arrived to charge you up and shake your world!  Blasting everything in their path with an amazingly intoxicating blend of hip hop and indie electronica and backed up with some of the best imagery we’ve ever seen, there’s no doubt about it, Yoshi are the real deal!  We grabbed a few words with them between recording sessions and console binges.

You’ve got a new album coming out soon. Tell us about it.
 
Yoshi:  We have just finished off the first Yoshi album; we're quite excited by it all. The tunes are sounding really fresh. It's a happy album, kinda summery upbeat indie with a little flavour of hip-hop and disco, it's still untitled but we're hoping it'll be available before the end of this Summer.   We release our tunes ourselves through Fwoosh records. Our first two singles came out on plastic and CD.  For the album we are going to do a release on branded USB memory sticks that'll be available on-line and at gigs. We'll also have it up as a free download from the website. There's some tracks up on the MySpace just now as a preview.
 
What else is going on for Yoshi in 2009?

Yoshi:  Loads of gig's and hopefully a couple of festivals too. We've been playing quite a lot recently and our live show has really come on. The gigs are the best part about playing in Yoshi, we all really enjoy them.
 
We're gonna be working on some new tunes, they'll have a different kinda vibe from what's going on currently. We've got some new members now too so that should be quite interesting
 
You’re addicted to gaming and consoles. Does this influence your sound?
 
Yoshi:  We're geeks, Video games are a big part of what we do, apart from the music it's the other thing that brings us all together. It's reflected in our lyrics and samples throughout all our tunes.  The newer tunes are featuring more and more 16 bit sounds now too so it's pretty evident on everything we do
 
You use very strong imagery and graphics. How did you go about developing these?
 
Yoshi:  The art has been heavily influenced by old Japanese HU card cartridges; some of them are really cool. Anime and comics play their part too. Marvel and Manga, gotta love it.  All our art was done by a lass called Emma Greary, she works under the names Pussy Tat and Anarkitty, she's great. All the stuff she has produced for us has been amazing. We'll defo continue to work with her in the future.

You remain as anonymous as possible.  What made you decide to do this?
 
Yoshi:  Mainly just because we have a 7 ft tall bald singer and the rest of the band look like extras from a George Romero film.  Seriously tho, it's just the way it's panned out. None of us are really comfortable with posing for photos and the anonymity just kinda sprung from there. It's not like we are totally adverse to them, we would be happy to publish live shots, it's just we've never had any decent ones done.
 
How did you meet and go on to form the band?
 
Yoshi:  Most of us have played together in bands since we we're kids, we all drifted into Yoshi from hanging about a studio when the band was first incepted. As more people were needed we just called on friends we knew could do

the job. Some of the original members have since left but now we've got the strongest line up since we started
 
What’s been the Yoshi highlight so far?
 
Yoshi:  Probably playing the Carling Academy in Islington, London and getting our mugs in the NME as a result
 
What are you listening to at the moment?
 
Yoshi:  We all listen to a lot of different stuff, right now it's mainly MF DOOM, Why?, Steely Dan, A Tribe Called Quest, Black Flag, Melvins, De La Soul, Modest Mouse, cLOUDDEAD...

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