Oakland darkwave act Yama Uba are back with Horizon, a six-track EP out on 4 November 2026 as a split release between Ratskin Records and Psychic Eye Records. It is their first release since the 2024 debut album Silhouettes.
Yama Uba is the project of singer, bassist and producer Akiko Sampson, joined by Winter Zora on guitar and saxophone. On Horizon, Sampson plays the synths, bass, piano and drum programming, Zora adds guitar and sax to every song and takes the lead vocal on “Into the Night”, and the EP was recorded and mixed by Sampson at Psychic Rat Studios.
The record moves between two moods. “Multitudes” and “Stomata” float on soft, meditative synths, while opener “Black Cat” leads the more bass-pumping, dance-ready side, with gritty rock vocals over dark 80s basslines. Every lyric also comes with a Japanese translation by Ryuichi Hayashi.
There is a cover too: a darkwave reading of Sinéad O’Connor’s “The Emperor’s New Clothes”, sitting next to the nostalgic “Queen of Swords”, which Sampson and Zora wrote together.
“It’s humbling to admit what we already know: that all we have is the present and our mutable sense of self,” says Sampson. “Horizon is about finding solace in uncertainty, and recognizing that we’ve always been living through shifting times.”
Since 2017 Sampson has shared stages, as Yama Uba or with the earlier project Ötzi, with acts like The Chameleons, Pink Turns Blue, She Past Away, Light Asylum and Twin Tribes.
Bandcamp – https://yamauba.bandcamp.com/album/horizon
Ratskin Records – https://ratskin.org/yamauba
Official site – https://yamaubamusic.com/home
YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEb9YixAWTBlyoEvPGX5Smg
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