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"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
It’s a curious thing. All the shades of green. Plants. Water. The absolute necessities of life. Music, too, is an absolute necessity. To capture both color and sound in a bottle to put atop a piano like a houseplant. A clock. A fern. Synesthesia. These songs are meant for that. To close your eyes and see green. To drown in the color of piano. Drawing influence from the psyche of Bill Evans’ Rhodes and Koji Kondo’s synthesizers, Shades of Green is a melancholic covey that pulls hard on the heart strings musically and lyrically, brushed over with a plethora of improvisation in smooth watercolors.
Tim Hill's Shades Of Green EP is out now in partnership with Calico Discos.
Second-generation Jamaican, Floridian rapper Wahid has today shared his debut two-track EP “WILT/CORNERSTONE.”
Feeling carefree, Wahid shares this on the two tracks, “‘WILT’ is a record conceived after I drank a cheap bottle of Stroysky liquor in the studio with Kaelin and Iggy. I wanted to emulate carefree vibes on Isaiah Rashad’s ‘House is Burning’ album. With a lot of Damian Marley playing through the studio speakers, ‘CORNERSTONE’ is a direct inspiration from a song his father wrote (Bob Marley’s Cornerstone; 1970), which is one of my all time favorite songs. Meek shall inherit the earth, last shall be first.”
Through Wahid’s sonic storytelling he refuses to submit to negativity and fatalism. His hip-hop collective had just wrapped their first national tour. Their DMs were flooded with A&Rs offering deals and producers looking to collaborate. One major label president – who had signed some of the biggest artists of the last quarter-century – told them that they were on the path to becoming global superstars. Then the group split up. It was over before it even began.
The ensuing depression was all-consuming. There were days where Wahid didn’t budge from bed, drawing the blinds closed, and numbing the wounds with bottle after bottle of liquor. Despite his best efforts to salvage the wreckage, none of his attempts yielded anything positive. But through the duress, he discovered his inner resilience and perseverance. Stay tuned for more music from Wahid.
“...while the group make much of this being a 'new era' there are still plenty of moments that conjure nostalgic, dreamy biss.” - MOJO
"The album brings us back to their sun-kissed California psych sounds once again, but this time with equal twists of clipped electronica and field recordings" - LOUDER THAN WAR
"embraces the pugnacious monotony of late ‘80s Lou Reed ... and reassures that they have not altogether lost interest in sun-splashed psychedelia" - UNCUT
“Surreal” - MXDWN on “Right On Time”
The Los Angeles-based Allah-Las released their new album, Zuma 85 via their own label, Calico Discos, in partnership with Innovative Leisure, which issued earlier defining statements from the band. In 2020, following the release of their album LAHS, the band members stepped away to refocus on their individual lives and interests, leading them to reimagine their creative processes. When they eventually regrouped, they adopted a more flexible approach. Instead of bringing fully finished songs to the studio, they entered the idyllic Panoramic House Studio in Stinson Beach armed with sketches, ideas, and riffs. Working with co-producer Jeremy Harris (White Fence, Devendra Banhart, Ty Segall) they shaped and crafted the new songs in real time over three sessions, which were then mixed in Los Angeles by frequent collaborator Jarvis Taveniere (Woods, Avalanches, Purple Mountains). The end result, Zuma 85, finds the band embracing the influences of late-era Lou Reed and John Cale, the ‘70s mutant pop of Peter Ivers and early Eno and Roxy Music.
In ten days the Allah-Las will kick off their first U.S. tour in support of Zuma 85 with a show in Phoenix, AZ on October 23. The tour also includes a two-night stand with Reverberation Radio at Lodge Room in Los Angeles on November 15 (with Mirror Tree and Kolumbo as support) and November 16 (with Tim Hall and Sam Burton as support), as well as stops in Denver, Dallas, and Seattle before concluding November 18 in San Francisco, CA. Following the U.S. run the band head to Australia in December. All announced shows are listed below and tickets are available here.
Leading to today’s release the Allah-Las teased the album with videos for four of Zuma 85’s singles, “Sky Club,” “Right On Time, The Stuff,” and Dust” and they saw support from Under The Radar, Brooklyn Vegan, Austin Town Hall, Buzzbands LA, MXDWN, The Big Takeover, MOJO and Ghettoblaster, among others. Today the band revealed two additional visuals - “The Fall,” music video which was animated and directed by Mark Neeley and “Jelly,” visualizer which was created with help from Farmer Dave. On his animation for “The Fall” Mark writes, "the video includes a lot of watercolor and fresh ink directly on paper, it's a juxtaposition of abstract and animating some of the song's narrative. I have always admired the careful curation of visual art that accompanies the music of Allah-Las, and I hope my analogue animation adds another dimension to that".