Yeasayer

All Music Guide:

The music of Brooklyn's Yeasayer is an eclectic, genre-bending journey into pop, rock, Middle Eastern and African musics, folk, and dub. Vocalist/keyboardist Chris Keating and vocalist/guitarist Anand Wilder were both raised in Baltimore, where they honed their vocal skills in a barbershop quartet and played in a high-school band, Sic Transit, before leaving town to attend different colleges. Years later, the two relocated to New York and began shaping the project that would soon become Yeasayer. Wilder's cousin, Ira Wolf Tuton, joined as the group's bassist, and drummer Luke Fasano was the last member to climb aboard in May 2006.

The band set to work on recording its debut album, All Hour Cymbals, which was unveiled to much critical acclaim (not to mention a healthy blogosphere buzz) in October 2007. International tour dates and festival appearances followed, during which the band honed its blend of live instrumentation and prerecorded samples. When it came time to record a second album, Yeasayer traveled to Woodstock, New York, and rented out the country home of percussionist Jerry Marotta. The resulting record, Odd Blood, appeared in early 2010 and showcased a different side of the band, with synthetic sounds and dance-inspired production playing a much larger role. Odd Blood proved even more successful than its predecessor in terms of album sales, and Yeasayer continued to tour internationally. In the fall of 2011, work began on the group's third album, Fragrant World. A continuation of the murkier textures of Odd Blood, the album arrived in the summer of 2012 and featured guest appearances from string player Kishi Bashi and NOMO's Elliot Bergman.

Wikipedia:

Yeasayer /ˈeɪeɪər/ is an American psychedelic pop band from Brooklyn, New York, formed in 2006. The band consists of Chris Keating, Ira Wolf Tuton, Anand Wilder and Cale Parks.

Contents

History[edit]

Formation and All Hour Cymbals[edit]

The band's three core members, Chris Keating, Ira Wolf Tuton and Anand Wilder, first came to attention after appearing at the SXSW festival in early 2007. The band's lineup is relatively unique, with Keating and Wilder both serving as lead vocalists and principal songwriters and the band producing the songs together as a unit. Wilder, who began playing cello when he was 4, described their songwriting styles to Pitchfork: "When I write a song, I'm always thinking of the harmonies; for me the song doesn't really exist without the harmonies. For example, Forgiveness would be a really boring melody without the choir behind it. Chris resisted any formal musical training, but his sense of melody and songcraft is just astounding."

Their first single consisted of a double A-side of the tracks "Sunrise" and "2080." Both songs appeared on their debut album All Hour Cymbals, which was released in October 2007 via We Are Free. The band has self described their sound as "Middle Eastern-psych-snap-gospel." Wilder has referenced influences including "Bollywood soundtracks from the 70s, Mapfumo records, and Celtic music." Many critics described the album as having "spiritual" influences. Wilder expanded on this in an interview, stating: "When you lack any specific religion, you become open to all sorts of religious music. And I think everyone can agree that some of the most beautiful music ever written was done so in the name of God or gods."

While supporting their debut album, the band became well known for their live performances, which often include psychedelic visuals. In 2008, Yeasayer toured with MGMT and Man Man and supported Beck. The same year they performed a public a cappella concert, "Take Away Show", on the Paris metro. The band also played at Lollapalooza, the Pitchfork Music Festival, the Austin City Limits Festival, Bonnaroo, Sasquatch! Music Festival, and the Reading and Leeds Festivals. In 2009, Yeasayer contributed "Tightrope" to the AIDS benefit album Dark Was the Night produced by the Red Hot Organization.

Odd Blood[edit]

Backed by labels Secretly Canadian and Mute Records, Yeasayer released their second studio album, Odd Blood, in February 2010, featuring more pop music influences than earlier work. The band addressed the changes sonically in an in depth interview with The Quietus, with Wolf Tuton stating: "I think the similar influences are there, but we have not focused on the same tones. We also wanted to focus on 90s dance music and production-wise get the low end thumping a little bit better. We also wanted to be more concise with our song writing and arrangement." Keating continued, "The first album was such a wall of noise and we couldn’t do anymore with it so we tried to strip it away ... Creatively it was a departure and it was a challenge to try and do it and simplify ... it was ... fun to try and not hide behind the haze."

The album was well received critically and commercially, with high placements on several notable year end best album lists including Time, Spin, and Under the Radar. In January 2011, The Hype Machine named Yeasayer the most blogged artist of 2010. Songs from Odd Blood were featured on several TV shows and films, including 90210, America's Next Top Model, The Good Wife, and the 2012 film Pitch Perfect.

The band toured extensively behind Odd Blood, with appearances at several major festivals, including Coachella Music Festival, the Dutch Pinkpop and Lowlands festival, Latitude Festival in England, and the Australian music festival Splendour in the Grass, where they were asked by the organizers of Laneway Festival to return and play in 2011.

In April 2011, Yeasayer released End Blood in participation with Record Store Day which the band described as "two ideas that didn't fit on Odd Blood".

Fragrant World[edit]

In May 2011, the band premiered their brand new song "Devil and the Deed" on Conan O'Brien's late night talk show. During their subsequent tour of North America, the band played this song at shows along with two other new tunes, "Demon Road" and "Henrietta". All three of these songs appeared on the final track listing for the band's next album.

On August 21, 2012, Yeasayer released Fragrant World. The band leaked the album version of "Henrietta" directly to 200 random fans by mailing them physical CDs. On where the inspiration for leaking the single directly to fans rather than via traditional channels came from, Keating stated: "I think #1, it's hard to do something secretive in the oversharing, Instagramming culture that we live in, so I liked the idea of a musical object you send to people ... I was actually interested to see if no one would share it at all. I thought that would be really cool. But I guess that doesn't happen anymore. Like 10 seconds after the first dude got the first envelope, I think he was in Belgium or the Netherlands or something, that guy was sharing it, and there it goes." The rest of the album was leaked via an online scavenger hunt where the band gave fans clues as to where each song and an accompanying visual directed by Yoshi Sodeoka could be found. To further promote the album, Yeasayer performed single "Longevity" on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon the night before its commercial release.

In much the same way that Odd Blood was a departure from All Hour Cymbals, Fragrant World saw the band continuing to expand their sound. According to Wolf Tuton, while Odd Blood featured pop influences, Fragrant World deliberately shied away from them: "If the tone of something veered too closely to a random pop song or to something on our previous records, we’d immediately steer it in a different direction. It’s easy to swerve back into your comfort zone without even realizing it, so we were very conscious of trying to stay away from that and take this into some different sonic direction." Wilder confirmed this, stating: "The music, the rhythms are a little bit more abstract. We allowed ourselves to experiment more, not really worrying about making the most catchy, anthemic pop songs for the Lollapalooza crowd ... We definitely wanted it to be a little bit darker than the last record."

Although the band began the touring before the album's formal release, the set list for shows during this cycle consisted of many tracks from Fragrant World. The band worked to rearrange older songs so that they would fit better in the set, with Keating saying the main thing the band asked themselves in rehearsals was "What could we do to make an obvious change but still preserve the integrity of the song, and to give the song new life not just for us but also for the audience?” The band partnered with Casey Reas and The Creators Project to develop an interactive set for the Fragrant World tour. The set consisted of mirrored prism-like structures that "utilize[d] elements of reflection and refraction to produce an immersive, multi-layered experience that ... subsume[d] audiences in color and light."

On June 21, 2013, the band posted a message on their Facebook page that they were going to being working on their fourth album after the end of the summer. Wilder later confirmed this in a July 2013 interview, stating that the band had already started writing and plans to enter the studio this winter.Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist}} template (see the help page).

Other appearances[edit]

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