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The ever so talented Yu Su gives Jonah Yano's "the speed of sound!" the remix treatment.
"the speed of sound!" (Yu Su’s Off Speed Remix) is out now on all platforms. Yu Su turns it into an atmospheric spaced out ambient dub beauty.
Jonah Yano performs a Take Away Show for Blogoteque with 'song about the family house' from his latest album portrait of a dog.
The wooden stairs of a house, a friendly dog and an intimate song. Canadian artist Jonah Yano - famous for his jazz-inflected soul-pop - delivers a sweet rendition of 'song about the family house'. This track is a tribute to a place which he holds close to his heart. A house everyone in his immediate family has lived in at one point or another that's about to get torn down. "And how do I keep / The living room intact / Exactly as it was / If I have to commit it and rebuild it in my memory." Lonesome guitar lines and weary vocal melodies sublimate this affecting song we captured just for you.
On his sophomore album, Jonah Yano shares the single co-produced by BADBADNOTGOOD. The track, "the ordinary is ordinary because it ordinarily repeats" opens with fleet-footed base notes into a cresendo of jazz prowess from Jonah and the BADBADNOTGOOD crew, with space for each instrument to shine.
Portrait of a Dog includes the previously-released singles "song about the family house," "Leslianne," "always," "the speed of sound!," and "portrait of a dog," which is at the confluence of his love of folk and jazz music. The album is a family affair in every sense, meticulously pieced together by Jonah and frequent collaborators BADBADNOTGOOD, while also deeply rooted and written from Jonah's personal experiences as he rediscovers his Japanese heritage and the importance of archiving family memories.
Beyond the co-production of BADBADNOTGOOD, Portrait of a Dog features additional guest work from Slauson Malone, Sea Oleena, with string arrangements by Eliza Niemi, Leland Whitty, and Yano himself. Yano's forthcoming second album follows his stint supporting Clairo for the last leg of her North American tour and the entirety of her European tour dates, which wrapped up last November. He also closed the live run with a headline show of his own at Servant Jazz Quarters in London.
See Stereogum for more about it.
And NPR's New Music Friday for a featured album piece.
In anticipation of his sophomore album out later this month, Jonah Yano shares his new single for "song about the family house." The album, Portrait of a Dog, is entirely co-produced with BADBADNOTGOOD and is out January 27th. The song sparks a fuse of familial memories, in a celebratory ode to his grandparents and the memories shared at their home in Vancouver. The themes of family and memory are central to Jonah's work, which he recently detailed in his cover story for RANGE's Winter 22/23 print issue.
'Song about the family house' is an amulet of the things we archive amongst ourselves as a family, the stories we tell at dinner, the knots of trauma passed down to untie, the details of family life that could only ever be understood by us, not because they are complicated to understand, but because they would never matter to anyone else, and in that public irrelevance, we privately celebrate each other."
Jonah's new offering arrives on the heels of his RANGE's winter print cover story and stint supporting Clairo for the last leg of her North American and the entirety of her European tour dates, which wrapped up last November. He also closed the live run with a headline show of his own at Servant Jazz Quarters in London.
Portrait of a Dog includes the previously-released singles "Leslianne," "always," "the speed of sound!," and "portrait of a dog," which is at the confluence of his love of folk and jazz music. It’s a focused departure from Yano’s previous recordings – establishing a clear sonic identity throughout the album’s 12 songs to weave together two complementary narrative threads of a family archive and exploration of the family dynamics in the Japanese-Canadian household he grew up in, and a deeply personal recollection of a fading relationship. Beyond the co-production of BADBADNOTGOOD, Portrait of a Dog features additional guest work from Slauson Malone, Sea Oleena, with string arrangements by Eliza Niemi, Leland Whitty, and Yano himself. Yano's forthcoming second album follows his stint supporting Clairo for the last leg of her North American tour and the entirety of her European tour dates, which wrapped up last November. He also closed the live run with a headline show of his own at Servant Jazz Quarters in London.
Hiroshima-born, Montreal-based singer-songwriter Jonah Yano shares his new single and video "portrait of a dog," the title track of his forthcoming sophomore album entirely co-produced with BADBADNOTGOOD, out January 27th. The new offering arrives on the heels of Yano's stint supporting Clairo for the last leg of her North American and the entirety of her European tour dates, which wrapped up last month. He also closed the live run with a headline show of his own at Servant Jazz Quarters in London. "portrait of a dog" is a sweeping arrangement that finds Jonah gliding over keys and guitar with heartfelt vocals before the song swells into a winding guitar solo, and is accompanied by a video co-directed by Erin O'Connor, Matisse A-M and Kostadin Kolev.
Speaking on the continued theme of the visuals he's released so far, Yano says "'portrait of a dog' is a video that, like the most recent video for the song ‘always’, is made up of uninterrupted, continuous, and static shots. The thinking behind the monotonous visual information in these new videos comes from a disinterest in the ever-increasing over-saturation and pace of digital media surrounding musicians that is furthering the divide between musicians-as-artists and musicians-as-commodity."
The collaborators, Erin O’Connor, Matisse A-M, and Kostadin Kolev ('portrait of a dog'), and Nik Arthur and David May ('always'), were the directors and producers of these videos because I feel they understand why it might be interesting (and surprisingly challenging) to try and make a music video that did not grab and attempt to retain the attention of a viewer through brightly colored sets and a large amount of cutting back and forth between an array of visually stimulating shots. In trying to subtract most of the elements that exist in the average music video we found it crucial that the idea for the video at its core had to be strong enough to stand on its own for 5 straight minutes – to get the idea across without making a pointless video."
"portrait of a dog includes the previously-released singles "leslianne," "always," and "the speed of sound!," which is at the confluence of his love of folk and jazz music.
It’s a focused departure from Yano’s previous recordings – establishing a clear sonic identity throughout the album’s 12 songs to weave together two complementary narrative threads of a family archive and exploration of the family dynamics in the Japanese-Canadian household he grew up in, and a deeply personal recollection of a fading relationship. Beyond the co-production of BADBADNOTGOOD, "portrait of a dog" features additional guest work from Slauson Malone, Sea Oleena, with string arrangements by Eliza Niemi, Leland Whitty, and Yano himself. Yano's forthcoming second album follows his cover of Jessica Pratt’s "This Time Around" and his highly acclaimed 2020 debut LP souvenir, which he spoke about with Lulu Garcia-Navarro on NPR's Weekend Edition.