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Montreal’s Jonah Yano recruits frequent collaborator Clairo for the final offering ahead of his forthcoming album out this Friday, with new single “Snowpath.” Having toured together and collaborated several times over the past few years, Jonah and Clairo embody the nature of their collaborative relationship on the song. The song details the warmth of time spent with friends, bringing listeners into the setting in which it was recorded - a snowed-in studio in rural Ontario with two sets of fresh footprints in the snow.
Jonah’s new album, Jonah Yano & The Heavy Loop, came together with intimate collaboration in mind, as a departure from his previous two albums - both of which were intimate portraits of his personal and family life. His third album, out on October 4, 2024, is one open to improvisation and melding the collective visions of each member of his band, which has been years in the making: Christopher Edmonson, Benjamin Maclean, Leighton Harrell, Felix Fox-Pappas and Raiden Louis. Jonah remains at the helm as the record’s conductor and central figure, but draws on the strengths and inspirations of each member of the band to craft an album that still dives into personal experience through its tender lyrics, but evolves musically as the band feeds off of one another in the fruitful exchange of ideas in the studio and lively bouts of improvisation.
"an architect of recollection" - Exclaim!
"warm, wistful, and quaint all at once" - HYPEBEAST
"'60s soulful voice that has hints of Smokey Robinson" - NPR
"His voice lilts with every syllable, making the imagery feel crushing and poignant" - Pitchfork
Montreal’s Jonah Yano shares a new single today titled “concentrate." The new song bookends a year that he kicked off with the release of his critically-acclaimed sophomore album portrait of a dog, which was co-produced alongside frequent collaborators BADBADNOTGOOD.
Jonah recorded “concentrate” with his live band (Christopher Edmondson, Benjamin Maclean, Leighton Harrell, Felix Fox-Pappas, and Raiden Louie), the first time they have all recorded a song together in-studio after first coming together to support Clairo on tour in the UK in 2022. The song also includes guest contributions from Clairo herself on clarinet and backup vocals. Fittingly placed to cap off the year, “concentrate” is a song about beginnings, and it also marks the beginning of a confident step into a new musical direction for Jonah Yano, having worked alongside the likes of Mustafa and BADBADNOTGOOD.
In addition to the single, Jonah will embark on his European tour dates later this week. The tour includes a stop at the Pitchfork Music Festival Paris, where Jonah will share the stage with acts like Youth Lagoon, Weyes Blood, Crumb, and more. Tickets can be found here.
This is Jonah’s first solo release since his sophomore album portrait of a dog, which was released earlier this year and received critical acclaim from outlets like RANGE, Pitchfork, and Exclaim!. Jonah also performed several of the album’s standout songs live for CBC’s The Intro in April.
Read more about the release on Sterogum.
See his upcoming European live dates below and stay tuned for more from Jonah Yano in 2024.
Tour Dates
11/9 - Bruges, Belgium @ Cactus Club
11/10 - Paris, France @ Pitchfork Festival Paris
11/12 - London, England @ Jazz Cafe
11/15 - Istanbul, Turkey @ Zorlu PSM
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.
"Gleefully discordant properties of early Scritti Politti" – Uncut
"Willfully obtuse, yet intrinsically irresistible. Extraordinary" 9/10 – Classic Rock
"Hypnotic post-punk pulse exists in a continuum with bands like Wire and Omni— tight bass groove, melting guitar leads, and all" – Stereogum
"Slashing and contemplative" – Brooklyn Vegan
"Sprawling slacker jam" – FLOOD
"Spindly, propulsive post-punk that doesn't shy away from a bit of brawny catharsis" – Post-Trash
Chicago-based five-piece, Dendrons have today released their much-anticipated second album, 5-3-8. The band has found widespread acclaim for this new album from Uncut, Classic Rock, Stereogum, FLOOD, Brooklyn Vegan, Post Trash, CBC Radio, Under the Radar, KCRW and more.
The release of the new album arrives in tandem with a video for "High In The Circle K", a standout track to be lifted from the new album. The song features bombastic grooves, and wiry, spindly guitar lines delivered over a bed of often monotone vocal delivery, segueing into a cathartic, 2-minute climax of hypnotic guitar work. Speaking about the track, Dane Jarvie of the band says: "The album's namesake comes from one of the repeated lines/mantras in this song: “Fifths, thirds, octaves only” — almost as an appeal for a sort of utopian ideal. A dumb simplification. A desirable reduction."
5-3-8 – titled as a reference to the lyrical refrain that appears at a few points of the album of “fifths, thirds, octaves only” – was recorded at Sonic Ranch in Tornillo, Texas and Highland Recording Studio in Phoenix, Arizona; it was produced by Tony Brant and Sonny Di Perri (Protomartyr, DIIV, Nine Inch Nails, Animal Collective, Emma Ruth Rundle, Dirty Projectors) before being mastered at Elysian Sound by Dave Cooley.
Dendrons hit the road before they even knew exactly where they were headed. On New Year’s Day 2018, Dane Jarvie and Zak Sprenger first convened in Chicago to start a new project, recording a demo at home by the seat of their pants, and almost immediately after, began to play shows. “I would just email as many people as possible,” says Jarvie. “I’m like, ‘Can we open this?’ It didn’t matter if it was in Dallas or New Orleans or Sioux Falls, South Dakota. It was like, let’s go.”
With a band name chosen by flipping through books in the library (“Dendron” is Greek for “tree”) and a sound and lineup in healthy evolution as they bounced around North America, Dendrons were finding who they were in front of a live audience. Over the course of 2018 and 2019, they were developing a propulsive, acerbic rock style both reminiscent of midwestern peers like Deeper and Dehd and reaching beyond to develop an unmistakable aura all their own. They put out their debut, 2020’s Dendrons, and were packing their bags for a full European tour before it had to be abruptly canceled when borders closed and venues shut down around the world. Suddenly, a band that cut their teeth on the road had to get comfortable staying at home.
“It was out of necessity,” says Jarvie, who started brainstorming ideas for a new album back at his family’s home in Phoenix, Arizona, just after the pandemic took hold. When he returned to Chicago a few months later, the full band of Jarvie (vocals/guitar/synth), Sprenger (synth/guitar), Matt Kase (bass/synth/vocals), John MacEachen (guitar/samples), Nick Togliatti (drums), and Stef Roti (drums) formed a bubble to get together and work out what would prove to be their highly ambitious and meticulously crafted second album, 5-3-8. “It was just like, well, we can’t tour, we can’t do anything,” Jarvie remembers. “So we might as well just stick together and really create something.”
Meeting three or four times a week, and ultimately rehearsing almost 40 song ideas, Dendrons began to methodically whittle down the batch to a set of songs that weaved through one another intricately, with lyrical and musical motifs dancing around a swirling rock arrangement. Taken on their own, tracks like “Vain Repeating” and “Octaves Only” tap into the manic energy and wit of bands like Wire and Stereolab—but in the context of the album’s full vision, they come together to paint an album informed by the post-truth spectacle, and a desire for optimism in the face of isolation.
The lyrics paint those emotions with subtlety, having been put together partially through a cut-up method, grabbing words and phrases from places such as CNN and CSPAN. “That was a real intention with this record was to try different techniques in terms of how words are coming together—stringing together sentences through collage,” Jarvie explains. On “New Outlook 1,” he sings in his direct, almost Stephen Malkmus-like style: “Soon we’ll be stooped over laughing / Watching ourselves high on a vision.”
“You’re always gonna leave a record feeling like there is something more to be said,” Jarvie says. “I don’t believe in a magnum opus. Art is contextual and exists for the specific time and circumstance it was created in. Every record is a conversation with the last.”
Purchase/stream Dendrons "5-3-8" here.
Chicago-based five-piece, Dendrons are today sharing "Vain Repeating", the final advance preview of their forthcoming second album, 5-3-8 which is out on August 26. The band, which has just wrapped up a Mexican tour with A Place to Bury Strangers, has found tips for this new album from Stereogum, FLOOD, Brooklyn Vegan, Post Trash, CBC Radio, Under the Radar, KCRW and more.
"Vain Repeating" changes tact from the jungle-inflected world of "New Outlook II" finding the band tapping into a punkier sound, switching flows and dynamics in a similar fashion to Magazine, Wire, etc. Speaking about the track, Dane Jarvie of the band says: "The song was created as a word pastiche of inconsequential data, spit out in aura of self-importance. The song deals with a loose promise of either cathartic piety, or vanity, through repetition, depending on who you’re talking to."