Hometown: London.
The card: James Yuill (voice, guitar, computer).
The background: There is a jape about iI acts comprising a scene and three constituting a movement. We don't actually know the joke only we do know thither is a group of young singer-songwriters out there using acoustic guitars as well as computer engineering to state themselves and convey their heartfelt messages. We fanny even name names: Jeremy Warmsley, Dan Deacon, Ben Esser, Rod Thomas and now James Yuill ar combining a love of acoustic balladeering and digital beats, of the wan and the Warp label, to shape this new generation of laptop troubadours. But what to call this movement? Balladisco? Songtronica? Bleepadour? Whatever, the blend of the synthetic and organic is immensely likeable when it's done well, and James Yuill is a superb exponent of such melancholy electronica.
His debut album is called Turning Down Water for Air, the title a metaphor for rejecting one essential thing for some other, and it could nigh be about Yuill's own schizoid impulses. On most of his songs the disparate elements are coalesced quite attractively, but live he is prone to distinguishing the two approaches, even on occasion doing separate acoustic and electronic shows. But it's when he merges the two that he's most interesting. His topper songs truly are like Nick Drake given a machine pulse by New Order, such as Over the Hills, which has the form of adorable chord changes and childlike reminiscences that Bernard Sumner once called his possess. Left Handed Girl sounds like an Aphex Twin tune organism played by a busker. And No Pins Allowed, a former single, is soft and sensitive just has an Italian house piano break and a fuzzy synthbass surge that makes it sound like Justice blinking the forlorn folkie singsong. To ram the point home he's even recorded a adaptation of Radiohead's Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box.
The 27-year-old used to work for a company that picked out music for TV adverts. His hardest job was once having to convince a client not to manipulation a Libertines song called Arbeit Macht Frei, a phrase which the Nazis used to hang as signs over their concentration camps. Not appropriate. Now his toughest task is working knocked out how to dovetail most seamlessly his plaintive melodies with his digital rhythms. And when he's not working on his possess music he's applying his knowledge of beat skill to other artists, wish his hero Aphex Twin adopting an alias, Hunger/Thirst, to remix the likes of Tilly & the Wall, the Answering Machine and Au Revoir Simone. What else? He late did the music for and gave a speak at a music conference, Meet the Millennials, where his burgeoning career was studied by industry experts keen to know how to build an hearing and make money from music in this download age. Oh, and he likes Guinness, and he sounds like he's intoxicated by his own sweet sorrow, which is why he's gotta dance to keep from crying. Or something.
The buzz: "Why can't all singer-songwriters be this inventive? Lusciously sad laptop phratry with a dancefloor pulse."
The truth: He regular looks like the speccy lank-haired unrivalled from the Chemical Brothers�
Most likely to: Love the c. P. Snow when it falls in winter.
Least likely to: Appreciate being called a synther-songwriter.
What to buy: Turning Down Water for Air is released by Moshi Moshi on October 13, preceded one week by the single This Sweet Love. Yuill plays the Water Rats this Wednesday.
File next to: Dan Deacon, Jeremy Warmsley, Rod Thomas, Ben Esser.
Links: www.myspace.com/jamesyuill
www.jamesyuill.com
Tomorrow's new isthmus: Archangel.
More info
