Bristol-based musician Chris Barrett aka Post Yoga has announced his new album: it’s self-titled and comes out on August 6 through Nothing Fancy. As with everything made under this project, it was created entirely on his Yamaha keyboard that he randomly found at a charity shop. If you think that would be limiting, you’d be wrong, as last year’s “Phil” shows – and today’s new offering, “Dead”, proves without doubt. Of the song, he says:
“I’ve been doing music for a long time, I fall out of love with it and then I’m back in love with it, it’s just been back and forth for 10-15 years. I’ve made a lot of music and most of it has never been heard. It’s a bit silly as well; I hope it gets perceived with an element of humour and satire as opposed to completely pompous pretentious waffle.”
You can understand why he might worry that people will think it’s pompous, as there’s more or less only one line in “Dead”: “you will only love me once I’m dead”. However by repeating it, adding characterful voice to it, and spreading it across his cartoonishly bobbing production, it takes on a new quality – something like a gallows humour joke shared between close friends. At first seemingly a simple and skeletal song, further listens to “Dead” start to shake loose all the detailed production choices Post Yoga has packed into the track; flickering clicks and shimmering layers give it a textural and tactile feel that adds to the slightly unsettling, slightly surreal, and wholly engrossing atmosphere.
“Dead” comes with a self-shot video of the artist working home alone on his music. Post Yoga says:
“It’s supposed to be a document of how tedious this time is for a lot of people, being at home and feeling like you’ve got to be creative because you’ve got all this time. But actually, it’s been a very uncreative and uninspiring time for the most part.”
You’ll also find the instrumental album track “Guv” out on streaming platforms or beneath the video, which is well worth digging into.
Post Yoga’s Post Yoga comes out on August 6 through Nothing Fancy (pre-order from Bandcamp). You can follow him on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
