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!e Myth of Unmasking Orville Peck 2 YES PLZ WEEKLY ISSUE 033 JULY 8, 2019 YES PLZ WEEKLY ISSUE 033 JULY 8, 2019 3

We love creating our monthly ritual, or turning on some tunes as music issues—so much so that we you make your morning coffee. I plan to start incorporating music hope my neighbors like waking up topics into every weekly. (We also to Flying Lotus. love food and drink, so expect to see more culinary content across Second, fnd good curators. The all issues, too.) This issue includes streaming service algorithms often a profle of the band Fell Runner, make decent recommendations, whose impressive new album we but, call me old fashioned, I prefer just released on our nascent record human beings. Maybe reading label. Give them a listen! reviews on sites like Pitchfork or Stereogum is worth a whirl. Internet Needless to say, we think the perfect radio stations like NTS and dublab moment in any day could consist of are really great for genre jumping a stolen moment sitting down with a and hearing things you won’t readily cup of coffee you made for yourself, fnd on the streaming sites. Look listening to music, and reading for Spotify or Apple Music playlists something fun and fascinating that from publications or people you like awakens the spirit. (fnd us on Spotify). Some good NPR stations like KEXP Seattle or KCRW Culture moves fast. Fashion is Los Angeles offer archived shows to getting faster all the time, though explore through their websites and still tends to be seasonal. We might are great at highlighting emerging be in a new golden age of artistic artists. And fnd the indie labels that flm and television. Newspapers suit your sensibility. Dig into their continue to go the way of the catalogs (I’ve been enjoying all sorts dinosaurs, while small, eclectic, of ambient-leaning releases coming indie zines like ours pop up all over. out of Leaving Records lately). But it’s in music—especially if your tastes skew as broadly as ours— Third—and your mileage may vary where things are moving almost here—I have one of those smart too fast and in too many directions speakers (in my case, an Apple to keep up. It can be dizzying. We HomePod). I’m surprised how much hope our music stories and regular I use it. Speaking aloud “hey Siri, playlists help you discover and dig play the new Cate Le Bon record” deeper for some artists worthy of is super low friction and avoids the your ear time. innumerable distractions that come with reaching for one of my devices Personally, in recent years, I’ve to surf for tunes. My time spent found the sheer volume of new listening to music at home has likely music to be overwhelming. Partly tripled since inviting this toy into as a result of what we’re doing with my living room. Yes Plz, and partly meeting and connecting with more music heads, Of course, there’s a good chance that I’ve adopted a few music exploration if you’re one of the people riding the strategies I’ll attempt to share. Yes Plz Weekly beans-and-zines train, you already have an adept ear to the First: Make room in your life for ground of what’s new and good and listening. Everything in our modern don’t need much music advice from world seems to induce ADHD, me. If you need any coffee advice, including the ways we consume however, we’re just an email away at music. The antidote? Block some [email protected]. time in your routine that involves real listening—even if it’s just Enjoy, a half-hour during a commute, queuing up fresh tracks for a workout, a sunset record spinning —Tonx

Inside the studio of Andrew Sarlo, p. 14. 4 YES PLZ WEEKLY ISSUE 033 JULY 8, 2019 YES PLZ WEEKLY ISSUE 033 JULY 8, 2019 5

Written by Sarah Gooding

Photographs by Ivana Klickovicˇ ´

Secrets There’s loneliness, and then there’s being alone. Nobody likes to be lonely, but one gets the feeling Cate Le Bon wouldn’t really mind. The idiosyncratic musician has learned to love isolation ever since growing up on a farm in Penboyr, a remote hamlet in West Wales. Although her rural upbringing and its harsh lessons about life and death may seem at odds with most of our modern metropolitan lives, it had a big hand in shaping Le Bon’s of artistic worldview. Le Bon learned to play guitar from her dad, who would teach her simple chords that she would then improvise over. The naturally skilled musician soon outgrew these jam sessions in favor of writing her own . Those early pieces dealt with the deaths of the animals around her on the farm – a natural way to process grief. The resulting collection was originally intended to be an album called Pet Deaths, but they found their fnal form in Me Oh My, Le Bon’s understated psychedelic pop debut. It was released in 2009, along with images of Le Bon posing elegantly with a giant egg, in front of a tangerine backdrop, her downcast eyes lined with long feathery lashes and heavy black eyeshadow beneath her dark brown bowl cut. This ’60s-inspired imagery propelled many comparisons to Nico, another artist known for her dramatic presence and sharp enunciation. Le Bon dismissed the comparisons with cool, quick wit when I interviewed her in 2010, the year after the album came out. “I think it’s just because I have a deep voice. And I’ve got a terrible heroin problem, as well,” she deadpanned. Despite leaving her tiny village after the release of Me Oh My (on Irony Bored, the label of fellow Welshman Gruff Rhys of Super Furry Animals), Le Bon has continued to seek solitude. Most life is its own its reward is life recently, she sequestered herself in the Lake District of Northwest

As Cate Le Bon learns, learns, Le Bon As Cate England for a full year. Completely alone in a house on a mountainside, it wasn’t solely a songwriting retreat, but that was part of it. She had enrolled in a year-long course designing and making furniture. “It was pretty intense. I had to leave for school at eight in the morning and come home at six, every day. So it was quite a shock to the system!” she laughs on the phone from London. “To have, all of a sudden, this really strict routine – it was shocking at frst, but then I grew to absolutely love it. It was the frst time in a long time that I’d get that Friday-night feeling!” It was a productive, though perhaps lonely period. “I don’t think I’d fully taken into account how it was going to change the whole architecture of my life, and how solitary a time it would become,” she says. “I love solitude, but in the run-up to that year I was imagining this montage of all the good bits of solitude. When you stop doing something you’ve been doing for a long, long time and then almost change your entire life, things catch Solitude up with you, and as a trade, you get 6 YES PLZ WEEKLY ISSUE 033 JULY 8, 2019 YES PLZ WEEKLY ISSUE 033 JULY 8, 2019 7

to catch up with things yourself. It an entirely different intention once was, accidentally, like a self-imposed they’re cracked open and examined. alienation.” “Sad Nudes” paints a darkly funny Time off from tour and rehearsals picture with its repeated line, “Sad and even basic socializing forced Le nudes in my room,” followed by, Bon to really reckon with herself. “Pick up the phone/Take the call The music she made reveals the from your mother/She really wants self-refection that took place. you to answer.” Le Bon says she Reward, her ffth album, unfurls in wasn’t actually interrupted while a kaleidoscope of styles—intricate photographing herself in the buff— folk, tightly-wound post-punk and she’s about something delightfully wonky psychedelic much more sinister. “It’s about how pop. One off-kilter turns into a woman’s body is like a factory. I a surreal jam with saxophone, was reading the book Ways of Seeing marimba and synths that sound like by John Berger, and he was talking a swarm of bees. about nudes and the possession The album deals with deeply of a woman’s body when she personal experiences—some so becomes a nude, you know. There’s intimate that Le Bon won’t reveal a known spectator.” the details. She was processing There’s a connection between change, pining for someone far this song and another track on away, and grappling with personal the album, “Mother’s Mother’s histories of misogyny. Despite the Magazines,” which refects on at-times diffcult subject matter, the burden of misogyny in the she says the songs and their workplace that her female family stories eventually fowed because members have had to bear over the change of scenery helped her generations. “It’s steeped in that develop a fresh perspective. “I knew lineage of feeling connected to your that I needed to write a record mom and your grandmother, and whilst I was there, but it happened feeling all the changes in the things in a very different way to what I’d that they’ve gone through, and semi-planned in my mind. Music where it leaves you in the world. became a hobby again. It became And you know, things that they’ve an outlet. The frst couple of months done that you beneft from.” I let the solitude turn on me a little Le Bon says she’s been moved bit, and I was having these periods by her female family members’ of self-reckoning and getting a little response to the “broader awareness too introspective. It became a really now of how women have been cathartic process. I wrote the record treated and are being treated,” and without the awareness of writing seeing their frustration boil over. a record, which was really nice.” “How fed-up they are, or were, and While contending with the big the way they were treated at work, adjustment that accompanies a and the way that their careers have major move, she found herself been tethered by this misogyny.” But refecting on another place that had also, “how excited they are about been the site of a seismic shift in her this possible shift in the fact that it’s life. “Decorate your own discord, being spoken about lots.” Miami,” she sings on the album’s With no noise to distract her, Le opening song. “Never be the same Bon was free to create; free from again, no way.” Grandfather the approval of outsiders. Her year clock-like chimes throughout the of solitude tapped into the self- song signify the time that must suffciency she has always possessed pass before one can adjust to but perhaps lost touch with after a monumental change. leaving Wales. Re-introducing it “Whenever you experience a to her creative process placed life big change, it’s both extraordinary on her own terms – the ultimate and completely normal at the same reward. “I was watching a strange time, and there’s an absurdity to TV program where a woman had me that exists between those two trained a horse to walk around a opposing feelings,” she says. “Your barn and close all the doors with its whole world can change and yet rear end,” she says. “At the end of it, you can feel as if everything is she said, ‘Now he gets his reward,’ totally unchanged. Miami is like and it was a carrot. It made me the opposite to where I grew up, really mad because she humiliated and to experience a big shift in a this beautiful animal, and then she big place like that just seemed dictated what its reward was, when to make it all the more absurd,” surely its reward would be that it she says. “The record deals with would never have to perform such alienation and change and coming a humiliating task again!” she says. to terms with things, and trying to “It’s kind of a ridiculous example, feel all the things. But I also think but it made me think about the it’s funny that someone from a small idea that you dictate someone’s village in West Wales is singing reward—it’s manipulative, isn’t it? about Miami.” So I guess what occured to me in “Whenever you experience a big change, it’s both extraordinary and Le Bon has always had a knack readdressing my relationship with for conjuring surreal imagery. Her everything in that year is that you completely normal at the same time, and there’s an absurdity to me songs can appear to mean one thing dictate your own reward. That’s on frst impression, and then reveal when it isn’t sinister.” ⬣ that exists between those two opposing feelings” 8 YES PLZ WEEKLY ISSUE 033 JULY 8, 2019 YES PLZ WEEKLY ISSUE 033 JULY 8, 2019 9

Written by Eli Enis

Photographs by Wunmi Onibudo

Orville Peck is who he appears and through. There are songs about to be. The masked country singer/ lonely nights spent on the dusty has only revealed tidbits trail, rawhide and buffalo, the about his life prior to Pony, his debut feeting nature of rodeo stardom, record that he released through and a whole lot of heartbreak. Sub Pop back in March. He claims Peck emphasizes that the music he that his name is actually Orville makes is not intentionally different Peck, but he’s dodgy about it when from the vast catalog of country asked straight-up. He says that subgenres he grew up listening to. he used to tour in punk bands up But to many of the ears he’s been until about fve years ago, when he reaching by signing with indie stopped to pursue acting full-time stalwart Sub Pop (think: Nirvana) in London. His age is unknown to Peck’s breed of outlaw country may fans and followers. He tells me that sound entirely new. he’s always wearing one of several His smoky, robust tenor has fringe leather masks that he dons at been compared to legends like all of his performances and in press Hank Williams and Roy Orbison, photos. Few people know what he and the album’s minimalist looks like underneath. However, instrumentation harkens back to he’s cagey when I ask about his self- the genre’s early era. But songs imposed crypticness. To him, it’s not like the stark “Big Sky” and the that special. tumbling “Buffalo Run” are doused “I don’t think I’m doing anything in the amount of reverb that would different than any other artist has normally turn up on a shoegaze done in the past,” he tells me over or goth-rock record. Peck wanted the phone. “Yeah, I wear a mask. a synthy style of production that But that’s just part of my aesthetic. pulls more from the ’80s, whereas Because I’m making a reference to, he attributes the songwriting itself obviously, the myth of the cowboy to the sounds of the ’60s and ’70s. and references to spaghetti westerns, “I come from a very diverse as well as rodeo performers. I’m not place as a fan of music,” Peck says. creating a persona. It’s not like I’m “I grew up listening to punk and playing a character. This is just my country and soul and girl groups expression as an artist.” and classical music. Genuinely “To me,” he continues, “that’s everything. So I think my palate for like asking, ‘why did David Bowie reference is quite large and I think wear crazy outfts?’ Or why did I defnitely like to draw on that as Prince wear his hair...I’m not trying an artist. I think that’s how to be a to create any kind of enigma, I’m clever artist and how to be a good not trying to construct falsities.” artist. It’s to know what inspires you Quite the opposite, actually. Peck and take things from that and make stresses that almost all of the stories it your own.” he tells on Pony are transparently Peck also identifes as a queer biographical. “So if anybody feels person, and he sings openly about like they aren’t getting the full male romantic desires throughout story from me, because I wear a the record. That’s another aspect of mask or because they think there’s his person that has turned the heads some illusion there, I would really of the uninitiated, people who he

recommend that they listen to my says aren’t familiar with country’s talent, country this For music. And they’d probably get to rich history of underground artists know me a lot quicker than they who are queer, feminist, and/or The magic of Orville of Peck: magic The would think.” people of color. unmask to nothing there’s Pony is a country album, through We recently chatted about the 10 YES PLZ WEEKLY ISSUE 033 JULY 8, 2019 YES PLZ WEEKLY ISSUE 033 JULY 8, 2019 11

genre’s recent evolution, how the writing anything. It’s just nice that represented me.” So them saying “That’s like asking, boundaries placed on country I’m actually getting exposure about that I represent that for them is so come from misunderstanding, it. There’s been so many people touching, because people feel that ‘why did David Bowie and country’s legacy of strongly who’ve done just what I’m doing I genuinely allow them to be who subversive fare. who’ve gone completely unknown. they are. That’s a really intense wear crazy outfits?’ compliment. It’s kind of an intense Could future Orville Peck Since the album came out, Lil thing to take on and deal with but records sound completely Nas X’s “Old Town Road” became it’s super, super touching and I fnd different than this? a huge phenomenon, and myself getting very emotional when there was the whole Billboard I meet people who tell me that. It’s possible. I think country is going controversy regarding how that And then on a personal note, for through a transition at the moment song is defned. Do you have any myself. When I meet these ultra, where people are still just trying to thoughts on that song and what seemingly cis, white, straight males, police what makes a country sound its popularity means for country sometimes in their seventies and or what makes a country album, music as a whole? eighties, coming up and introducing or whatever that’s supposed to me to their wives and telling me that mean. The country I know, which I think it’s a great tune. I can’t get this is their [grandkid’s] favorite I know as a massive umbrella it out of my head. I also think that album. And telling me that they that has so many subgenres and the controversy over whether that saw Hank Williams. Just crazy, sounds working underneath it. I sounds like or not, I the other spectrum. The complete will always make country music. can’t speak to whether it’s country opposite side. ⬣ Whether that’s gonna be something music or not—to be honest with that sounds like Hank Williams you. But I think it doesn’t sound or something that’s gonna sound any different than any of the music different than that, I don’t know. I hear on country radio every day. Every country song now is some Are you interested in using the white guy with a click track singing boundless movement in country about a truck, and it’s pretty much as part of your creative ethos? a trap beat. I don’t really see how that’s any different? It’s just because It’s funny, in some ways I’m a real the guy’s black. That is really what it purist about stuff and I’m kind of comes down to with that argument. like a stickler for anything that’s Beyond all of that, if there is gonna going as newfangled. But that’s be a subgenre of country music the thing; I think what I’m doing that’s trap country, why not? isn’t new. What I’m doing is really an ode to all kinds of country that Whether it be because of your I grew up loving. So maybe that label or your history in other has created something new, which genres, etc., is it a struggle is great. But it’s not really my for you to prove yourself as a intention to come in and try to be a country artist? rabble rouser and to try and subvert country or whatever. I’ve always The thing is, nobody can get thought that country’s subversive, anything on me about country anyway, and I’ve always thought because I know country in and out. that it’s extremely diverse. I know the history of it, I have a very well-versed knowledge of country What do you think is subversive music because I’ve been listening to about country? it since I was very little. So the references and the I mean obviously not all country. music that I make, I never think There have defnitely been voices in it’s anything far from country country that are ultra-conservative, whatsoever—because I understand of course. It’s a genre that’s been it. But the people who seem to dominated by white men for a long criticize it, they’re always people time. But there’s even people within who know only one or two country that world. Willie Nelson and the artists. They’ll come back at me whole outlaw country movement, I and talk about Dolly Parton, or thought was extremely subversive. the frst one they can think of. So People like Townes Van Zandt and it’s not a struggle for me; in fact, I Bob Dylan’s country albums, or Neil invite it. I invite the conversation Young. Or even older than that if because I know I’ll always win. . .I you think about Gram Parsons or feel very much embraced by a lot Flying Burrito Brothers or Loretta of the country community and Lynn or Dolly Parton. These are country artists, and I receive a lot voices that had subversive subject of, sometimes thrilling, emails and matter in their songs—voices that messages from people I’ve always didn’t necessarily just comply looked up to as country musicians with what the Nashville song was and artists. looking for at the time. We look back on them, and in retrospect they look What are some of your favorites conservative to us now. But Johnny and/or surprising pieces of fan Cash singing about shooting people mail you’ve received? dead and watching people die and going to prison? Those weren’t Two extremes: The things that I conservative things at the time. fnd really touching are when queer They weren’t normal. That was people or trans people, or people of a subversive artist who created a color—marginalized people—talk legend and a fantasy about himself to me at the show and say like, “Oh being this outlaw without having I grew up in a really, really super- even served any time in prison. conservative, ultra-religious part of Within the underground there’s the world, and my parents disowned always been people of color, me, and I had to leave my city and queer people, gay people, women, my state. But I grew up loving feminists. Those people have always country and that was still part of existed in country and in cowboy what my culture was, and I feel culture as well. So that’s not me re- I’ve never ft into it and no one ever I’m not trying to create any kind of enigma, I’m not trying to construct falsities.” 12 YES PLZ WEEKLY ISSUE 033 JULY 8, 2019 YES PLZ WEEKLY ISSUE 033 JULY 8, 2019 13

Talking JOY that this is the kind of existential into life’s intangibilities: “This is a bullshit they’ve cleared away. That song about my friend named Jeff Fell Runner’s Runner’s Fell opens up a freedom for craft, even who wants to be an astronaut / He that which has roots in academic likes to lay out on the hood of his or virtuosic circles, to be generous. car and stare at the stars from the Accessible. Empowering. You don’t parking lot / And if you ask him have to be a wine snob to drink the what he’s seeing he will tell you that ’92 Montrachet. Go ahead, treat / He’s just trying to wrap his mind yourself. around how insignifcant he really is The Los Angeles-based band (Tim / And that he likes the way it makes “We’re not Carr, Gregory Uhlmann, Marcus him feel.” A nostalgic refection on Hogsta, Steven Kai van Betten) childhood, “Jeffrey” is hypnotically putting the formed seven years ago while rhythmic, hopscotching from

new album album new studying jazz at CalArts. As artists, Byrnesian spoken word to chorus rhythms in they thrive on a collaborative harmonies with Zeppelin vibes collage of infuences, from Deerhoof and a foating outro. Sudden halts our calculators to the British Invasion. After throughout, like growing pains, graduation, for example, van Betten build tension, and as the band and spitting left for Ghana to study music and outlines a looping riff together, one do feld recordings with Victor Nani of the four musically acts out, from it out. Agbeli. While music theorists and time to time. It’s inspired ethnomusicologists can nod along “Dog Inside a Car” offers a with knowing smiles at every turn, charming metaphor to sweeten from, at least the rest of us can also enjoy it. They the reality that there’s so much come together to experiment, to more out there than what we’re initially, a type enjoy making music, and have a fne able to perceive. The human is to time playing together. It’s infectious. the world, what the dog is to a car. of music that “Other bands that we had Musical arrangement evokes that noticed—who you could call art frustration, with van Betten’s and had nothing school rock—were too intellectual Uhlmann’s guitars in dialogue with and not as satisfying as a band,” each other—often to complete the explains van Betten. “It’s not same melodic line. Meanwhile, to do with something that you have to have Carr’s drums and Hogsta’s bass an art school degree to appreciate.” create tension in jagged, stop-and- an intellectual Adds Uhlmann, “At the core of it, go rhythm. But does any of that we just wanted the music to feel matter, really? It’s a carefree listen. pursuit.” good. When I think of music that’s Against so much complexity, really academic—often the part of it technicality, and musicality, that gets compromised is the feeling simplicity pours through in honest, SPARK and the groove of it, and I think uncontrived melodies, especially in that’s always been the thing that we “Like a Knife" and “Come Home.” wouldn’t ever compromise.” In the end, it’s a communication Written by That feeling and groove leads to with the listener, a communication Alison Steingold an album—released through the among musicians, a call and Yez Plz —where each response. The chorus pleads, “Come song feels like its own experiment. home, and be with your man,” as and infectiously fun infectiously and

Listening to musicianship ambitious, intense, is In whole, there’s a presence, a sentiment pangs with sonic pathos beyond one’s pay grade at once relentlessness in their efforts, and and a pitter-patter of percussive demands and exhilarates. Rhythmic a freedom in the improvisation vulnerability. complexities I can’t comprehend, captured when laying down tracks I asked Uhlmann about this when I nevertheless fnd enchanting; (all of which they self-produced). we recently spoke on the eve of the transcendent moments of space, Songwriting could take off in any band’s summer tour, into the pine- I feel I almost touch. And then, direction, at any moment. But scented reaches of and the should my concentration break, they’re conscious of the need for Pac Northwest. “I heard a thing on which it inevitably does, I plummet structure to be palatable: “The the radio, and that exact question back to earth where once again, I experimentation is coming from came up...They asked, ‘What is the am nothing but a machine, brand a playful place,” says van Betten. purpose of home, and what does human, ftted with ear canals. “Recently, I’ve personally been that mean?’ And this guy gleaned Lord knows the gift of musical going back to older rock bands from something his nine-year-old talent and improvisation in and hanging out with these classic son said, and it was a simple and immature hands devolves into songs and classic arrangements beautiful answer: Home is where masturbatory extended jam—an like The Kinks and The Beatles and you are yourself. That’s a more inside joke with oneself. As listeners, those kind of really solid tunes, abstract version of, ‘Oh, it’s a house we’re left uprooted, on the outside. and taking the exposure that we’ve or an apartment,’ but that rings The begged question lingers: had to West African music and true for me.” Why do musicians create? To fnd other kinds of world music and Yourself. Your human home. themselves? To communicate contemporary classical music and From the state of deep listening, with others? Or, like abstract thinking about—at the core, what once again, falling back down expressionism, is it simply the are making these really timeless to earth, meditating on the experience of the act itself? songs work.” inevitability that wherever you go, One gets the sense, listening to Lyrics, like the quirky intro to there you are, seems to make that Fell Runner’s second album, Talking, “Jeffrey,” almost impossibly unravel humanness just a little more OK. ⬣ Like 31 Flavors in in Flavors 31 Like song, experimental 14 YES PLZ WEEKLY ISSUE 033 JULY 8, 2019 YES PLZ WEEKLY ISSUE 033 JULY 8, 2019 15

I defnitely can’t remember “the any infuence on your approach frst song” but I’ll use this music since living here? opportunity to plug my good friend Sean Tracy who, in college, let me Michelle, my partner, was the main mess around with his songs. I have reason why I came out here. I was a fond memory of us recording a diffcult New Yorker who never those a mix of one of his songs onto a wanted to move to L.A., but it 2-track at school and played it back happened and I’m really grateful for CREATIVITY at half-speed thinking it sounded it. The city itself hasn’t really shown tones are incredible. But then we played it me its fre just yet. I’m defnitely not back at a quarter speed and were judging it but rather I’m not plugged actually just smitten listening to that, into any real music community “Walking uninterrupted, in a dim lit studio. out here that is roughing it and painful That was a huge moment. Very making great music because of on the trippy and felt exploratory. that. It’s all pretty comfortable or and don’t luxurious operations out here for subway Many key critics have called the better or worse. Driving, however, really new Big Thief album, U.F.O.F., a has changed a lot about what I’m IN ORBIT masterpiece. You have a close looking for in music these days. in NYC align with personal relationship with Walking on the subway in NYC the band, and I can’t imagine had me listening to harsher tones Written by hard to avoid that infuence. It was the vibe… they would continually work and more aggressive, left-leaning Joshua Fisher everywhere. Then there was TRL, with someone they didn’t have stuff, while now that I’m in the sun which was shot in Times Square, complete trust in. How did and driving a car, those tones are Photographed by so it felt oddly like it was in our that relationship form, how actually painful and don’t really Caitlin G. Dennis backyard or something. That was does it impact your working align with the vibe… Now it’s just my crash course on musical genres relationship, and how does it Enya and self-help books. or styles. Then once Nu-Metal came feel to work with a band who around, I was fully corrupted and are constantly pushing the Do you have any golden rules in music was the most entertaining boundaries of their genre? the studio that you abide by? thing to me. Perhaps the name Andrew Sarlo Because we all pretty much met Not really. I wish I did but honestly, doesn’t come to mind when you You’re known as an extremely while in college or just when we I feel so young doing what I do that think about some of your favorite talented bass player… What left college, we’ve been friends every project is so different. It’s like albums of the past few years, but drew you to that instrument? for a while now. I’ve done seven having a play date with someone there is a good chance he has albums with Adrianne [Lenker] and then doing the exact same played a role in a number of them. I played bass only because my specifcally, and it has allowed thing every time a different person The producer, engineer, and mixer friend needed someone to play bass. us to get quite comfortable while comes over? …[I]f I had to make one has worked with everyone from This way, we could play Green Day recording. Ultimately, when you up on the spot, I wish everyone, Big Thief and Hand Habits to Nick songs. I begged my Mom for a bass Now work closely with certain people, including myself, was more fearless. Hakim and Empress Of. Although so she got me a Slammer Hammer, you start to speak more directly to most of the albums he has worked and I learned really fast. I have a one another. It cuts the fat out of What about when approaching on have received critical acclaim, vivid memory of bringing the brand it’s just the recording process to get right a song? it is Big Thief’s most recent U.F.O.F. new bass home and trying to play down to it. We are all trying pretty that has already been labeled a the verse of “Basket Case” by Green Enya hard while working together. It’s I just want the song to come “folk masterpiece” and could be Day in front of my friends. I think not some gift or anything; everyone through and not get slammed with a major pivot point in the young they said, “Whoa that’s it!” and it and is just bringing their A-game. I’m unnecessary baggage. I’m not really producer’s career. was enough instant gratifcation extremely grateful to have an outlet that good at maximal production. I I had the pleasure of sitting in on to keep me interested for eight-plus self-help like Big Thief. feel like I’m almost incapable, but a session with Sarlo about a year years. We ended up playing Green maybe that will change as time and a half ago. In the studio, he has Day tunes for probably a full fve books” Nick Hakim is another artist goes on and I feel more confdent. nurturing demeanor and is armed months, but we were in 5th or 6th that I’m a huge fan of, and you Until then, it’s pretty minimal. with a sense of humor that cuts grade. In high school, it was all slap seem to have played a major role through the weight of expectation. bass territory for me. I used to do in helping to shape/develop his Outside of the artist you have Unafraid to take risks, he is willing our school’s talent show programs. sound. From his frst two EPs already had the pleasure of to experiment with the big ideas I would sit in the middle of the stage in 2014 to the brilliant Green working with, who tops the that pop into his head at any given and just rip a bass solo. Looking Twins LP he released three dream list? moment. back, I was defnitely OBSESSED years later, you are credited Most importantly, the only with bass playing and thought with producing, engineering I somehow feel like a spoiled kid in thing I found lacking was an it was the coolest. It’s all Victor and mixing all three. What can saying whom I’d like to work with ego. Sarlo is a fan of the artists he Wooten’s fault. we expect from his new album? in the contemporary realm, so chooses to work with. Rather than I’ll pick an old one: either a fy on the authority on how something When was that pivotal moment One thing that defnitely needs to be the wall or at the board working should sound, the role he plays is you decided you wanted to understood is how much of Nick’s with the likes of Scott Walker or that of the added band member, work on the production side of music is discovered and created all John Lennon. Perhaps they are a albeit one with a deep knowledge of things? on his own. He’s super free musically bit basic as picks, but they really recording. I have no doubt it’s these and he’s pretty consistently making do capture my imagination. I just qualities that keep bands such as Well, I’m probably not letting music. He jokes around that I have wonder what the vibe was like Big Thief returning. anyone down saying Radiohead some demos of his songs that he leaving the studio together, or Having just fnished up the new was a huge infuence. My older sister doesn’t even remember making. watching them say they have to Chastity Belt LP and in-between had all their CDs, and I remember had me They’re good ones, too. But a lot of go to the bathroom. Literally them sessions with Puma Blue, Sarlo taking OK Computer and putting it while now our chemistry is found by how well doing anything other the music took the time to go back and forth on in my bedroom before I would go listening to he inspires the situation to go for bit would be so amusing to me. It’s on everything from Green Day to sleep. “Subterranean Homesick something because of the way he kind of how they lived that makes as the reason for him picking up Alien” would knock me out every that I’m records his music. It touches on so their music sound the way it does. the bass, to how the vibe of L.A. time. I was always asleep for the rest harsher tones many infuences for both of us that has him listening to Enya and of the album. I may not have heard in the we speak the same language. We Finally, you put together a self-help books. He was also kind the rest of the album for another and more are trying to bring out as much as playlist for this issue. What do enough to contribute this issue’s year after that phase… Hearing sun and we can in each song to turn them these songs mean to you? Playlist (p. 16). releases from Warp Records when aggressive, into little journeys. This next LP I was about 16 years old just blew driving will be a ride for sure, but I feel like I made a playlist called “Beautiful As a child growing up in N.Y., my mind. It felt the most like a real left-leaning it has zero desperation and is most Berries” while in Croatia with what were some of your earliest listening experience. Clark remains a car, likely going to feel like entering his Michelle. It’s just a bunch of songs memories of music? one of my favorites, but it was just stuff, mind. Anyone who knows Nick that I wanted us to bathe in while shocking to hear such intensity closely can see how much of his driving in Croatia. Since we got

Producer Andrew Sarlo gets gets Sarlo Andrew Producer At the risk of sounding corny, I in music that wasn’t stylized as personality is in his music. Every back, the playlist has been growing, have to admit that rap was the just dance or hip hop. It triggered shade of Nick is pretty accurately so I took a few from that playlist for most impressionable part of the me fooling around in Logic for the represented on this next LP. this one. I would encourage one late ’90s around NYC. I remember next few years, which then led to to listen on shuffe and while they down to earth and into the mix the into earth to and down going to Rye Playland as a kid and RealAudio for sure. You recently made the move to do any activity: driving, resting, riding a bunch of rides while the Los Angeles, as so many artists cooking, waking up, reading, staff blasted Biggie, Big Pun, Mase, Can you remember the frst seem to be doing. What brought whatever. Let them just shine over Jay-Z, Blackstreet…It was very song you ever produced? you to L.A. and has the city had the room. ⬣ 16 YES PLZ WEEKLY ISSUE 033 JULY 8, 2019 Dispatches from The Playlist Guest Curated by the Bureau of Andrew Sarlo Cosmic Vibrations “These are all songs from a larger playlist I have called ‘Beautiful Berries’ —it’s just a selection of songs that I think are just Week of July 8, 2019 by Written Chun D.S. triumphantly gorgeous and pillars in time.” Cancer (Jun 21 - Jul 22) Go to the Aquarius (Jan 20 - Feb 18) forest and attach a phone to a tree. Tranquility served with a side of Ennio Morricone Call your oldest friend. Sing a song bliss is your blessing this week. “Sospesi Tra le Nuvole” to them at the top of your lungs. Lie down on the foor. Cry for a bit. Pisces (Feb 19 - Mar 20) During a post-hump day stressfest-coping “My Ship Is Coming In” Leo (Jul 23 - Aug 22) Boris Johnson mega-lunch sugar crash, you will will appear in your dreams as a experience the briefest glimpse of Love shadowy love interest and this will the infnite matrix of cosmic gender. “The Castle” make you question EVERYTHING. Aries (Mar 21 - Apr 19) Through Moby Grape Virgo (Aug 23 - Sep 22) When hackers a series of cosmic errors, you will “I Am Not Willing” take over your company with stolen be commissioned by the U.N. to NSA-created ransomware, you will compose a sonata for the end of the Big Star realize it’s time for a career change. world. “Dream Lover”

Libra (Sep 23 - Oct 22) Approaching Taurus (Apr 20 - May 20) This is the Paul Simon a trial of the heart at breakneck week you are the most mammalian. “Flowers Never Bend speed by the weekend, the stars Embrace your nature, touch pure with the Rainfall” advise that every impact is an sky and slurp clear water in the opportunity for transformation. cybernetic forest that you call home. Linda Perhacs “Chimacum Rain” Scorpio (Oct 23 - Nov 22) Don’t be Gemini (May 21 - Jun 20) This week, dispirited when you have to start you’ve got a frst-class-captain’s- Victor Jara all over again on a long-worked cabin-all-expense-paid passage “El Cigarrito” project. The lessons learned will pay on the Cruise Ship of Ultimate you back for years to come. Chill over the seven seas of time Nina Simone booked and delivered, care of THE “That’s All I Ask” Sagittarius (Nov 22 - Dec 21) Go UNIVERSE. to your local park on Wednesday Scott Walker afternoon to meet an unleashed pug “Montague Terrace with psychic powers. He will give (In Blue)” you some of the best life coaching bitcoin can pay for. Mina “La voce del silenzio” Capricorn (Dec 22 - Jan 21) Spending Something at least eight hours a day carrying Gene McDaniels something as long as a fsh and wide “Another Tear Falls” to Look as a soccer ball will be the key to great fnancial rewards in August. Sibylle Baier “Forget About” Forward to

Elis Regina Issue 34 hands its pages to guest “Romaria” (feat. editor Lauren Montanari for an Renato e Grupo Água) insider’s look at art and design, from Casa Perfect in the legend- Scott Walker ary Trousdale Estates, to Bower “Black Sheep Boy” Studios out of New York. And all summer long, we’ll have more mu- sic, strange tales, odd jobs, fuffy robots, and miscellany to mystify and delight.

Contributors The Team Tony "Tonx" Konecny @chrisfurniss is a cartoonist, Pusher/Publisher illustrator and stay at home dad www Facebook living in Seattle, WA. Sumi Ali yesplz.coffee #deletefacebook Coffee @dschun is a writer, flmmaker, Instagram Email and editor in Los Angeles. Alison Steingold @yesplzdotcoffee [email protected] Words @eli_enis is a culture writer based Text or Call out of Pittsburgh whose work can Caitlin G. Dennis @yesplzdotcoffee (424) 835-1537 be found in , Billboard, Art Direction Bandcamp, Vice, and elsewhere. What is this? Thom Meredith & @sarahgooding is a writer and edi- Brad Klemmer (Kley.co) The Yes Plz Weekly is tor based in New York City, whose Digital and Design an insanely delicious, work has appeared in Rolling ever-evolving mix Stone, i-D and The FADER. Joshua Fisher of the best coffees, Music roasted fresh, and a gratuitously Story pitches Ryan Brown eclectic magazine can be emailed to Bean Sorcery produced each week [email protected]. by our small team Sean U'Ren of weirdos. Available Proudly roasted Video exclusively online and printed in and at select stockists. Los Angeles, Tell a friend. California.

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