PRE-AUTUMNAL DIGEST with YY WOOD

What-ho my liege

What do you mean you’ve been down the Queen’s Vaults sticking John Dowland on the jukie screaming ‘Verily!’? Have you completely lost it?

SGARAB NEWS

Two releases to share with you. First; yy wood – YELLS, it’s HERE, or at least it will be when the clowns at DHL stop insisting I have made Carnedd up and that there is no such address. For the unfamiliar, yy wood is the duo of producer / general header Ya Yonder and artist / wild enthusiast Tess Wood. YELLS is at least seven cuts of syrupy weirdo-pop that dips between haunting and raucous at tremendous speed. Head to the Bandcamp to grab the pre-order and listen to ‘Not golden yet’, and while you’re there you can also read some of the thinking behind their slippery, high-sheen auteurism (or scroll down where I’ve stuck the press release). I hope yous all luv it, it’s been real nice being involved although I do hope they stop calling me ‘The CEO’ soon

Second is something I put out myself last July, A Bed of Moss and Soda Water, originally conceived as a live set from Tangled Parrot at Swansea as part of Rhodri Davies’s NAWR series and one I had every intention of recording at the time except I only gone and forgot to hit record. Abyssal drift, dream-logic rhythms, troubled dogs, a hymn to the Consumed Sun, and a train-carriage bound for Haverfordwest, solemnly populated by your dad (alone, topless, late for work, in the mood). Strictly headphone gear. Really miss West Wales but glad to be using my voice more

GIGS

Yeah I’m putting a few gigs on

FRI OCT 4: YY WOOD LAUNCH PARTY w/ PATO CANTON AND 1 MORE TBA @ Paradise Garden, Cardiff, 20:00

We’re doing a launch party for the tape over in Cardiff East, Dando on deck afterwards. Come or else. Buy tickets here. Still looking for the perfect opener; ideally looking for a DJ with a taste for ambient / laid-back / lo-fi sounds who identifies as female or non-binary. If that’s you, hit me up: sgarabtapes@gmail.com

FRI OCT 25: JENA JANG & SI PATON, HAN, I’M DEAD @ SHIFT, Willcox House, Dunleavy Drive, Cardiff, 19:30

Very pleased to say that Han, aka Boosterhooch—Scotland’s finest cash-in-hand DJ—will be jumping on the Jena Jang / Si Paton gig. This was already a killer line-up; Jena Jang is an improvising musician from Korea who deploys high-drama vocals and home-soldered synths to call down dense and unsettling atmospheres. She’ll be joined by composer, improviser reputed wrestling fan and ‘Prepared Bassist’ Si Paton, who plies a solid trade in the field of virtuosic, doesn’t-quite-fit-anywhere free-formisms. Never have I been more serious when I say ‘expect the unexpected’.

Meanwhile, I’m Dead is an intriguing new venture from Matt Loveridge (MXLX), Jo Kelly (Wendy Miasma) and Charlie Miles (Liquid Library). In their words, ‘avant-grunge movements; an attempt at engineering a gay Melvins’; yes please. Then there’s Han, an experimental musician and fellow healthcare worker from Scotland whose latest release on Trilogy Tapes—Leaving A Spoon In A Tub -10—covers everything from readying yourself for well-being week by ordering fish fingers on Uber Eats to heading over to Decathlon which, last I checked, remained extremely reasonably priced

FRI DEC 6: SOLDERER, TOP SHORTAGE, SHISHU @ SHIFT, Willcox House, Dunleavy Drive, Cardiff, 19:30

This one potentially subject to change but for now let your jaws gape at the prospect of this midwinter night of seriously left-field riffing. Soldering are ‘extra-terrestrial anarcho-slump dirge from Leeds’, Top Shortage are scrappy queerdo carnage via East Oxford—a massive highlight for me at last March’s Oh Community! all-dayer down that way—and Shishu are lowborn, high-slung bother from Cardiff which I didn’t realise was still going, extremely glad to see it is

OTHER STUFF

MON SEP 23: Pasta Now! @ SHIFT, Willcox House, Dunleavy Drive, Cardiff, 18:30

Do you live in the South Wales area and identify as female, trans or non-binary?* Do you have, or do you suspect you might have, an interest in experimental music, whether simply listening, making or otherwise? Are you looking to involve yourself in Cardiff’s experimental sound community but unsure where to start? Do you like pasta?

If so, consider Pasta Now!, a new women-led reading and listening group inspired by Fanny Chiarello’s incredible account of 2731 women, trans and non-binary in experimental music, ‘Basta Now!’ More info here but important to note is that there will be pasta

*As Chiarello would have it, it’s ‘nothing against men, it’s just not about them’

I know I promised some reviews but those will have to wait as I’ve got a real job now you understand. Here’s the real yy wood press release for any bona fide music journalists who may be reading this, get in touch if you would like the press pack

yy wood - YELLS

Available now on tape and digital: yy wood’s slippery pop-auteurism is the stuff that shakes the long-grass, the spanner in the works. Born of air and born again of fire, their debut release YELLS sees the pair embrace disorder, melancholy, deep sweetness and humour-laden rancour. At their most vibrant, vocalist Tess Wood’s urgent yearning and playful interjections slip and slide between the folds of producer Ya Yonder's esoteric big-beat and wonky worship; in their less raucous moments, a gust of sonorous, dream-logic absurdism, feather-light textures and eventide keys

Following an October 2023 residency at SHIFT, Cardiff, the duo spent time interrogating their sound’s relationship with space and movement in the live environment. Off the back of this comes seven tracks for tape, including Not golden yet, recently premiered on Noods; a swaggering surge of syrupy hard-then-soft maximalism. Through this, Wood decants the inane / inspired replies of a chatbot by diving into the mind of someone who finds their modes and limits of expression are increasingly influenced by AI

Such assumed roles, adjacent worlds, imagined conflicts and heightened emotional states feature throughout an EP fuelled by the frictions and contradictions that making music and working collaboratively in 2024 can generate; but with any luck, what shines through best on YELLS is a shared passion for brave and bold music that reaches for the peripheries of form and structure, and simultaneously the vital energies in simplicity and good pop music

Join us for a launch party at Cardiff’s Paradise Garden on Friday October 4th, and catch Tess and JT on Noods Radio’s ‘Adre’ on Sunday October 13th