Yardsss Releases Debut Album Today

Self Group announces the release of Portland experimentalist Yardsss' debut album and short film, Foma, due out today, July 2nd. Yardsss is yet another artistic venture from multi-instrumentalist and producer Krist Krueger (see also: Southerly, Sndtrkr). Foma is reminiscent of Southerly's 2010 dark instrumental Champion of the Noisy Negativists (also the first Self Group release), channeling the voice as an expressive instrument and letting the music alone tell the story versus laying out a specific lyrical theme.

Foma follows a number of collaborations for Yardsss as well as a video singles series including the first release "Kristallnacht" and "6". The album was recorded in Portland, OR at Krueger's own Sonic Sandbox and completed at Haywire Recording Studio, engineered by Robert Bartleson (Glass Candy, Desert City Soundtrack, Slackjaw), produced by he and Krueger and mastered by TW Walsh (Sufjan Stevens, Cold War Kids, David Bazan, Foxygen). The film was conceptualized and directed by Krist Krueger and Jon Garcia of Lake Productions (The Falls, Tandem Hearts), shot over a weekend in Portland and the surrounding area using a homemade POV camera mount featuring Krueger and collaborator Eli Savage and is available to view in full via the Self Group Youtube page. The original cover artwork was hand-drawn by San Francisco visual artist Michelle Ramin.

Foma, a word created by the late author Kurt Vonnegut and defined as "harmless untruths" could be an epithet describing Yardsss' modus operandi. The album makes you dig for each layer, burying melodies within melodies but without oversaturating or confusing the ear, as though the apparent lead is simply foma itself. An appropriate title then for this debut extended-play project.