A Star is Yorn

Pete Yorn’s new album is music for the morning after the night before when you a) garnered enough courage to talk to the girl who you’ve been making eye contact with all night or b) realized that even after a long relationship that things between the person you love would never be the same again. The album captures that mystifying feeling that signifies a coming and a going, the beginnings and the endings. It opens with “Life on a Chain,” a song that starts with a scratchy needle-on-a-record sound signaling this trip from the past into the musical future.

The story goes that Yorn, a 26-year-old songwriter from New Jersey, came to Los Angeles and gave an impromptu performance for a Columbia Records producer and was immediately signed. He then went on to score the gross-out comedy Me, Myself, and Irene for the Farrelly Brothers and has a song on a Dawson Creek compilation. But don’t get the wrong idea, he’s not a teenager’s popstar nor is his music suitable for the WB. Rather Yorn is a serious musician, who plays the guitars, bass, piano, drums, tambourines and synth strings on the album and sings as well. His self-created sound mixes folkish American rock with the luscious melodies of British pop. The songs revolve around themes of distance and intimacy, and Yorn refuses to fall into the cliche of lonely singer/songwriter. Instead he notices the failings and exhilarations of love, avoiding the trap of the hopeless romantic. Vocally, he could be described as a fusion of a modern rock Springsteen mixed with an accessible and melodic Lou Reed.

In the past week, I had the opportunity to see Yorn in concert at the Paradise Rock Club. Being that the Paradise is so small, it is difficult to get good acoustics and ambience there. Yorn, backed by three other musicians, was soundwise one of the best bands I’ve seen at the Paradise. You could hear all the different lines from each instrument clearly without distortion or overmodulation. Yorn himself, unknown to the crowd who were waiting for the Backstreet Boys of rock, Semisonic, rocked the stage with a short set highlighted by an alternative rendition of Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark.” He also played a few cuts from the new album and promised to be back in Boston soon. If and when he returns, catch his show and pick up his album. Yorn will surely be a household name for those in the musical know.