Tender - By Yvette Young
TITLE: Tender
ARTIST: Yvette Young
GENRE: Acoustic math rock / Folk
MOOD: Healing
SIMILAR TO: toe, Tide/edit, Sufjan Stevens
Having been around for less than three years, Yvette Young (along with her band Covet) has managed to carve out an inimitable niche in the oversaturated genre of math rock. Her fluid guitar melodies weave a tender web around an agile core of drums and bass. Her solo acoustic project loses none of this ability to evoke emotion, instead managing to amplify it by stripping away the percussive component and adding a feathery, orchestral dimension by way of violin. Sparse appearance of banjo and piano (all played by Yvette, a multi-instrumentalist) bring a sense of classical, poppy beauty.
Tender, the central song of the EP, encapsulates this complex, yet evocative, approach. “Weakness takes its toll—I hope you know that you’re not alone in suffering,” sings Yvette, speaking of healing through love and compassion; listening to the direct beauty of her composition, it’s not hard to be comforted by her words.