Youngblood album a mental journey
Place names on debut more evocative than literal
The 13 tracks that make up Cheyenne, the debut album from Nashville-based singer/songwriter Connor Youngblood represent two years of extensive travel on the part of the artist. But don’t listen to songs such as Stockholm or Yellowknife expecting any kind of obvious narrative line about something that went down in the namesake city.
He may mention somewhere in Southern California, stuck outside in L.A. But amid the cascading piano, insistent tambourine, hints of brass and ambient sounds, he’s talking about something or someone existing outside a spot on the map. This is decidedly an album settled in the mind of the artist more than the outside world.
He admits that the only track on the album with a direct relationship to the title is Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge. The 74,000acre national wildlife refuge in Utah was established in 1928 and left such an impression on Youngblood that he found a new hobby.
“That one is really attached to the fact that I went there and spent a few days at the invitation of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Bureau to take in a birdwatching tour and write a song for charity,” said Youngblood. “Before that, I didn’t really think of myself as a twitcher ( bird-watcher), but now I’m genuinely fascinated by all the different species and behaviours. The invitation initially came about from a song I’d written about wanting to go birdwatching and now my friends and my mother have decided I’m obsessed with it.”
To be fair to friends and family, Cheyenne also features the wonderful Birds of Finland, a lovely song floating on synth loops, hammered dulcimer and more where he names everything from the bittern and wrens to shovellers and more. Yet, as with all of his material, the lyrics are abstract and impressionistic.
Cheyenne features more than 30 different instruments, all of which were played by Youngblood. Often mixed down in the dense layers, his smooth folky voice is looped and reverberating. Obvious touch- stones include both Bon Iver and Sufjan Stevens. Another clear influence is the late Elliott Smith. Youngblood actually has to turn down Smith on his stereo to do this interview.
“I’m a big fan of the whole lo-fi thing, because it’s got the vibe I needed,” he said.
“I hadn’t really anticipated it being right for my style of working, but it is. A lot of my process is sitting down in isolation, picking up an instrument, trying to get something going.”
As he discovers something sonically he will loop it and try to come up with other melodic parts to go with it. Lyrics are often snippets that become mantra-like refrains that he then builds off as well. This explanation goes a long way toward explaining why Cheyenne sounds the way it does, which is mixing experimental folk with ambient lo-fi and even bits of psychedelia. He admits to having a kind of musical ADHD.
“Sometimes I work from leftover music from other songs that are already on my computer that I’ll just start messing around with, things are constantly changing up,” he said. “I reach for so many instruments because too much guitar gets instantly monotonous and there are so many other fretted string instruments to choose from too. I’m not proficient on all the instruments I incorporate, but good enough to make it work out.”
It’s not surprising that the Dallas-born and raised, Yale-educated musician found his first media champions in the U.K. Youngblood still finds fans getting surprised that he is an American act.
“A lot of people seem to think that I’m from Australia for some reason,” he said. “Perhaps the fact I work more with textures over voice is why. My earlier work was really a lot more about the musical side than the vocal, but Cheyenne is where I found equal points for both.”
Youngblood admits that he focuses on the minutiae of the details when he’s recording. He likens his multiple musical layers as being similar to a painting. If you “look/ listen” to just the bass in the lower right-hand corner, you get a different experience than concentrating on another zone of the sound. That’s cool in studio. But how do you bring it to the live stage?
“I’m working with loops and, sometimes, with a drummer and a bass player,” he said. “Cheyenne was made with more focus on songs that could be performed in a more straightforward manner. For this coming Canadian show, I’m using a bass player and going back to some of the looped drums I used before.”
In other words, his setup is flexible and he likes it that way. Certain tunes from Cheyenne are really hitting the mark with this lineup live, finding grooves they didn’t have on the album.
“Los Angeles is a lot of fun with just the two of us, I’m super happy with it,” he said. “And Sulphur Springs, where I use a lot of AutoTune, is coming off really differently than I expected. I wrote the song using Auto-Tune as a tool from the get-go to find the melodies, and I’ve no idea how it would sound without it.”
He had originally entered Yale to become an architect. When that didn’t work out, he took a degree in American Studies and went to work as an artist. Perhaps it was a best possible result as Cheyenne’s songs could be seen as sonic architecture in their own right.
Cheyenne was made with more focus on songs that could be performed in a more straightforward manner.