Yota – Review: The Touch (2025)
The new album The Touch marks a aesthetic shift in Yota’s career— one in which she makes no attempt to recreate the past.
Instead, she opens a deeper portal, using her own voice as the emotional compass of the entire work. Join us for a closer listen.
Text by Fábio César — Original Article, Area Orbital (Brazil), 2025.
YOTA — THE TOUCH (2025)
Style: Emotional Synthwave / Retrofuturistic Dream Pop
For fans of: Electric Youth, Parallels, Marvel83′
©2025 NewRetroWave Records.
Panorama
When you sit down to hear Yota’s new album, The Touch, it’s worth setting aside — for a moment — her earlier releases, where she often leaned into a Chrissie Hynde–styled delivery (Pretenders), aiming instead at something denser and more interior.
Because here, she projects a new and very special scenario. Starting from pop and 80s nostalgia with “At Night,” the record quickly takes off toward broader — and more intimate — horizons, where her unmistakable voice is explored in full range and versatility.
The cover art, showing Yota in overlapping personalities like old CMYK color separations used in 20th-century print shops, already hints at the vocal layers we’re about to encounter throughout the album.
In The Touch, Yota reunites with Lifelike and other major international producers, including France’s Stéphane Lozac’h and Sweden’s Johan Agebjörn. It’s a guarantee of technical finesse, even if the full list of instruments and gear hasn’t yet been confirmed.
The soundtrack remains Synthwave in its truest and most personal form, although the track selection and order occasionally create shifts in intensity that may come across as monotone to listeners who aren’t already fans. But nothing that truly detracts from the album’s overall quality.
Music Review
Some of the most striking tracks include “Hide,” with its fast-mode synths pounding like a hammer through the arteries of the mind, packed with tightly stacked and heavily processed vocals.
Or “Side by Side,” where her voice glides beautifully over a bed of synths, stretching the notes to their limit.
“Last Goodbye” brings in rock guitars in an unmistakably Icehouse-flavored 80s atmosphere — fitting, given that Yota has previously delivered a notable cover of the band (“Hey Little Girl”).
Meanwhile, “Monster” and “This Time” close the album with a sense of calm introspection, rounding off a record created for those who aren’t in a hurry.
And the title track deserves its own paragraph: here Yota seems to converse with herself, guided by a resonant, eloquent bass that pushes the ambient space forward, almost as if we were standing on a primitive, pre-life version of Earth — vast, quiet, and waiting.
The video also conveys this idea of an encounter between her and her own Self, and that of another, beyond the mirror, which unfolds into feelings of love and communion …
Overall Appreciation
Taken as a whole, The Touch feels like a temporal drift, the kind of experience where a spirit slips from the body and spirals outward in widening arcs (perhaps I’ve been reading too much sci-fi …). As Yota sings on the title track:
“Elevate my mind,
Somewhere high above the sky that’s where we meet,
Elevate my mind,
Level up and rise up to my mood,
So divine”.
Or simply listen while you unwind — preferably at night.
But here on Earth, of course.
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© 2025 Area Orbital — All rights reserved.
This article is an original, human-authored work by Fábio César, first published by Area Orbital (Brazil).
English version adapted for international readers by the Area Orbital editorial team.
[Read the original Portuguese edition → areaorbital.com.br]
Reproduction of this content, in whole or in part, is not permitted without prior authorization.
Area Orbital® is an independent publication dedicated to Retrowave music and 1980s culture.
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