Yeasayer puts tried-and-true sounds through experimental filter
It's been a good year for experimental pop band Yeasayer.
The Brooklyn-based group's second record, “Odd Blood,” came out in February. Critics and bloggers talked it up immediately, and in the last couple of weeks it has appeared on many “best of 2010” lists.
The band, meanwhile, embarked on a massive tour that took them all over the country and around the world, including a stop in August in Chicago as part of the Lollapalooza rock festival.
“It's been pretty intense,” said bassist Ira Wolf Tuton. “We've been supporting the album practically nonstop, and the response has been incredible. We're really flattered and grateful. Though I think we're all eager now to get back into the studio and start creating again.”
The band has a few shows to do before that, though, including a two-night stand over New Year's Eve weekend at the Metro in Chicago.
“New Year's Eve has evolved into such a strange night,” Tuton said with a laugh. “The expectations have just gotten huge. But we'll try to embrace that atmosphere during those shows.”
“Odd Blood,” out on the Secretly Canadian label, features the same electronic experimentation found on Yeasayer's 2007 debut, “All Hour Cymbals.” This time, though, the band contains those elements within more tightly structured pop songs.
Angular, percussive rhythms form the basis of the record's layered tunes. On top of that, the group stacks plenty of lush keyboards and Chris Keating's soaring, anthemic vocals.
Many tracks recall the best of the synth-laden 1980s. “I Remember” and “O.N.E.” wouldn't have been out of place on a John Hughes movie soundtrack, alongside tunes by The Talking Heads or Depeche Mode.
Other tracks, like “Mondegreen,” aim straight for the dance floor with pounding beats designed to put hips and feet into motion.
The band collaborated on the songs, which resulted from the wide variety of music the members were exposed to growing up, Tuton said.
“We all grew up at a really interesting time, musically, when the Internet wasn't around and radio ruled,” he said. “To us, everything from ‘Material Girl' to classic rock to the Wu Tang Clan was ‘pop.' We absorbed all that stuff. And it all comes out in different ways when we create our own music.”
Visual expression is also important to Yeasayer. The band created music videos for several songs on “Odd Blood” — “Madder Red,” “O.N.E.” and “Ambling Alp.” The clips, which gained quite a bit of traction on the Internet, are surreal, dreamy and sometimes disturbing. (The “Madder Red” video features actress Kristen Bell and a monstrously deformed creature she appears to love.)
“It was fascinating to see what someone who works in a different medium would do with our work,” Tuton said. “For us, visuals are an exciting alternate outlet. I think bands who don't engage in that aspect of the music are missing out on something.”
The band promises to bring some of that visual sense to the upcoming shows at the Metro.
“The shows I got the most excited about as a fan had some kind of visual component,” Tuton said. “We don't just want to be a group of sweaty guys onstage.”
After 2010 comes to a close, the members of Yeasayer plan to regroup in the studio. The band hasn't come up with a specific plan for the next record, but Tuton said fans can expect new Yeasayer music to emerge in 2011.
“We hope to get away from some of the craziness that accompanied the last record for awhile, but we'll still get new music out there,” he said. “In this day and age, you can't afford to sit still for long.”
Yeasayer
{When: }9 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 30, and 10 p.m. Friday, Dec. 31
{Where:} Metro, 3730 N. Clark St., Chicago
{Tickets:} $24 for the Dec. 30 show. General admission tickets for Dec. 31 are sold out; reserved table packages ($500 for two people) were still available at press time. Go to metrochicago.com.