Tiny Pause [CD]

Having amassed a legion of loyal fans with his signature blend of electronic, psychedelic and rock influences, the artist known as Yppah (pronounced “yip-ah”) is back with perhaps his most intimate work to date. Tiny Pause, due for release on Counter Records on October 2, finds Yppah adopting an enormous technical shift in his writing process,moving away from largely software-based production and live instrumentation to modular synthesizers and samplers.Tiny Pause is informed in large part by shifts in Yppah’s life since his last work, 2012’s Eighty One (Ninja Tune). Having toured the album, moved from Texas to Southern California and transitioned into more ambitious commercial work (for trailers, sound design and music libraries), Yppah soon found himself embracing hardware in a big way, buying and selling gear constantly while writing to find the best-suited combination for his workflow. The addition of two dogs to his home and a newfound hobby of surfing round out Yppah’s biggest influencers for the direction of the new record. And it all shows - the celestial dips and rises in “Occasional Magic,” the cascade of drums in “Little Dreamer,” the fractured ascent of “Spider Hands,” and the human-tinged glitches of “Neighborhoods” all point to an artist matured not only in sound but in perspective.