[ATTENDED: September 13, 2018] Yuno
I had heard of Yuno, but hadn’t realized it. All Songs Considered played his song “No Going Back” back in February. I liked it but had forgotten about it come September.
When I saw the poster for the Superorganism show and saw that Yuno was opening I assumed it was a dance band (possibly Japanese, probably female). But I didn’t investigate.
So I was surprised when Yuno came out and he was an African-American dude from Florida. As soon as he said his name (like “you know”) I remembered joking about the pronunciation of his name on the podcast and it all came flooding back.
Yuno is a 27-year-old from Jacksonville. He recorded a lot of his work in his bedroom and posted it on Soundcloud. In what sounds like a made up story Ishmael Butler of Shabazz Palaces started tracking him on Souncloud and eventually reached out to him to record an EP with SubPop. (Yuno didn’t tell us this, I looked it up).
You can tell that Yuno is thrilled with his good fortune. He is upbeat and happy, savoring every minute of this tour with Supereroganism.
He and his four piece played a half-dozen songs. Yuno himself played just about every instrument. He played keyboards on the opening song “Amber” and guitar on a couple of songs, like “Grapefruit.”
He played most of the songs from his EP, although Grapefruit is older. He also told us that “Sunlight” dated back to 2012. He played bass on this song which had a sweet poppy New order-ish sound.
Most of his songs were bright and summery. His delivery was quite elastic with high notes and occasional forays into rapping. He also had a lot of fun with the sounds he was generation, like on Amber when he talked about an ambulance and he played with his voice going “whoop whoop.”
Some of his songs were too poppy for me. I was a little bored by “Fall in Love,” a slow moody song although midway through he started singing the lyrics to Smashmouth’s “All Star” without changing his original musical melody, and it worked perfectly. The crowd really responded and once I realized what was happening, Yuno’s reaction to our reaction was pretty great.
I really liked “Why For.” The heaviness of the guitar and the bass guitar (which was not present on every song), really made this one stand out for me.
He ended the set with No Going Back. A lot of people recognized his song and he encouraged everyone to sing along.
He was delightful guy and his songs were a lot of fun, a perfect opening act.
- Amber*
- Grapefruit (2013)
- Sunlight (2012)
- Fall In Love*
- All Star (Smashmouth)
- Why For*
- So Slow*
- No Going Back*
* from the EP Moodie.
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