Pete Yorn has been surprisingly prolific of late. Consider that it was three years between his sophomore outing, 2003’s Day I Forgot, and 2006’s bracingly eclectic Nightcrawler, the latter largely restoring the potential of his brazenly accomplished out-of-nowhere debut, 2001’s Musicforthemorningafter. Another three years between releases, and Montville, N.J.’s favorite boho chick magnet suddenly had a lot more to say. Last year saw the release of Back & Fourth, followed by Break Up, a wispy collaboration with Scarlett Johansson inspired by Serge Gainsbourg’s duets with Brigitte Bardot. Now Yorn has ditched his smokin’-hot muse for Frank Black, who encouraged the confessed perfectionist and overdub junky to strip away the studio varnish and rawk out for the new Pete Yorn (Vagrant). Yorn will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our Q&A with him.
Yorn: I had been familiar with Ariel Pink and his music for some time, as he’s been doing his thing in Los Angeles for years now. But he’s finally getting a lot of well-deserved attention with his new album, Before Today. This is a top-notch songwriter who’s always been extremely lo-fi: ’70s AM-radio pop hooks bathed in lots of tape hiss and smeary sounds. He sounds like a vintage top-40, eight-track tape being broadcasted through outer space, originating from some distant planet. On this new album he seems to have widened his scope a bit. The songs are uniquely crafted, and he’s found a good balance between his classic lo-fi charm and a bigger hi-fi sound. Two interesting and unrelated connections: My friend Sunny Levine, who produced The Break Up record for me and Scarlett Johansson, produced a lot of the key tracks on this new Ariel record, and my longtime bandmate Joe Kennedy has recently been playing in Ariel’s band as well. My favorite track off Before Today would have to be “Butt-House Blondies.”
