A new Yard Act with seemingly no need for any renovation. It’s time for your new post!

Good Morning! My name is Jacob Braybrooke and, as per usual, I’m typing about your daily track on the blog, because it’s always my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! Yard Act are very much… well… an emerging act, ironically enough. According to my online research, the 4-piece group have only managed to play at three live gigs together, due to the restrictions that were set forth by that pesky virus. The band still deserve some good attention and a little more exposure, however, and “Fixer Upper” is a testament of this. Not much else is known about them, and their Spotify bio simply reads as “Minimalist Rock from Leeds”. It is known, however, that Yard Act is a four-piece from Leeds made up of James Smith (Vocals), Ryan Needham (Bass), Sammy Robinson (Percussion) and George Townend (Drums). So far, they have only released two singles, “The Trapper’s Pelts” and “Fixer Upper”, which I’d highly recommend. Let’s have a listen to the latter new single below.

Yard Act’s vocalist James Smith explained to Clash Magazine: “Graeme was inspired by an amalgamation of people who lived on my street growing up. I think everyone knows a Graeme, maybe a neighbour or an uncle… sorry if he’s your dad. Not a bad man at heart, he just sincerely believes he’s from a country and generation that achieved the apex of everything so therefore can’t ever be wrong about anything.”, and I’ve got to be honest, when I first heard the track in the daytime on BBC Radio 6Music, I thought it was an old cult classic track from the late 70’s that I’d somehow never heard before. It’s got a very vintage, old-fashioned British hip-hop sound, with acerbic guitar hooks that evoke the “Bummed” era of Happy Mondays, and the razor-sharp lyricism makes me think of the silly little raps of which the Plunderbird boys used to do on Robot Wars back in the childhood days. The guitar riffs feel very angular, as Smith embodies the Graeme character in all of his glory to the sound of a killer No Wave backing track which evokes the likes of ESG and Liquid Liquid. There are quirky one-liners and tongue-in-cheek mocking of the upper-conservative class at each turn, with “I can’t believe I’m a two home-owner, finally…” and “We’re gonna put pound-shop terracotta’s everywhere” adding a very comedic undertone to the rambling, socially mobile aspirations of the Graeme character. “It’s a Fixer Upper” is an energetic hook that accompanies the crowded backing vocals very nicely and refrains like “And he had a PHD, did he? What in? Probably one of those pointless media degrees, not for me” add a rhythmic quirk to the wiry bass guitar riffs and the rickety, clattering drum patterns that roll along. It’s quite melodic, with a catchy lead guitar hook that tends to add context and tone to the narrative, rather than a particular beat to drive the rap forward. As Smith’s vocal boasts get more and more rapid, the arrangement begins to form a Post-Punk backing over time, while the narrative gets finished off with “I’m not from around here, but I am” to close the track on the note that Graeme has embraced a new cultural identity, in a very British sense. Overall, I think it’s as gold as Graeme’s rover – not like that big old thing over the road.

Thank you very much for reading my new post! As per usual, I’ll be back for an in-depth look, tomorrow, at the new track from an old favourite of mine that I haven’t heard anything much from for quite a long while. This is an alternative rock musician from Halifax, Nova Scotia who released a rather Avalanches-esque album in 2012. He is, perhaps, best known for producing and writing as both a solo artist, and a frequent collaborator for Hylozoists, of which he’s the younger brother of Paul Aucoin, the founder of Hylozoists. If you really liked what you just read, why not follow the blog to get notified when every new daily post is up and why not like the Facebook page here?: https://www.facebook.com/OneTrackAtATime/