Pete Yorn Is Thinking Of: Nautical Oil Paintings

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’m talking about those New England-style oil paintings of seascapes and old sea vessels and clippers. You might see them in the lobby of some old bed and breakfast or hotel. (The American Hotel in Sag Harbor, N.Y., comes to mind.) They remind me of family trips to Cape Cod and Nantucket from when I was a little kid. More recently, I found renewed interest in them after reading In The Heart Of The Sea: The Tragedy Of The Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick. It’s the story of a doomed whaling expedition. The Essex was sunk by an 80-foot sperm whale in the Pacific in 1820. This is the story that inspired Herman Melville’s classic Moby-Dick. Classic stuff, indeed. The right nautical oil painting sure can make a room.

Video after the jump.