A RUMINATION on nature, quietness, solitude, mental health, and a joy in the organic process of creation, are the things which define Us and Then, the new album from Galway singer-songwriter Yawning Chasm.
The music of Yawning Chasm (aka Aaron Coyne ), straddles folk-rock, singer-songwriter, lo-fi indie, and shoegaze - but with a strong emphasis on the acoustic and the intimate. Us and Then abounds with such qualities and is a strong follow up to Aaron’s impressive 2018 release, Songs From Blue House. Indeed there are parallels and divergences between the two albums.
"Blue House came from a particular 'place' I was in at the time,” Aaron tells me, “whereas this album comes from a journey of sorts, actual and figurative, but a journey that has brought me back to where I started from. However these 'same' places are different because the journey changes the journeyer. The first song, 'Never Wanna Give You Up', is coming from dark desperation and the last song, 'Us and Them', is one of defiance and, hopefully, resilience in the face of catastrophe.”
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While the album has a largely mellow, gentle feel, there is depth, darkness, and a raw honesty, beneath the seeming calm. “I was confronting and trying to deal with lifelong anxiety and depression with counselling and medication for the first time, starting a few years ago,” Aaron says. “This has had a huge impact on my writing. Throw in falling in love, having my heart broken, and trying to recover from that, and a chunk of existential crisis from the climate emergency. Bake in head for two years and out comes a Yawning Chasm album.”
The Natural World
Indeed, environmental and nature themes loom large on Us and Then (‘Ant’, ‘Bird’, ‘Greenspace’, ‘River’, ‘Sky’ ), and Aaron admits “the natural world keeps me grounded”.
“Walking in the woods or on a shoreline or river bank is a big part of my coping mechanism in dealing with the world,” he says. “Being in nature is a great tool for sharpening perspective, discovering what’s really important to you, listening to and actually hearing, your own thoughts.”
'I have found myself sometimes overwhelmed with sadness because of what we're doing to the environment'
‘Greenspace’ is a fascinating piece as it features no music, only a recording of birdsong. That it comes exactly midway through the album neatly divides the work into two halves - a kind of Side A and Side B, a form all but lost were it not for the vinyl resurgence.
“‘Greenspace’ was the last thing recorded,” says Aaron. “It’s a straight, unedited, three minute recording of a place I like to go. Sometimes I'm taking photos of birds or just listening. It is a nod to the situation we find ourselves in with lockdown and how to cope, so it's kind of placed as a breather in the middle of these songs, like how we now take a breather from our houses, housemates, or family, by going for a walk, going somewhere to be alone.
'The album sounds like two EPs that crashed into each other, although thematically they are mostly coming from the same place'
“I have found myself over the last year being sometimes overwhelmed with sadness when in nature, because of what we're doing to it. When you understand we are a part of it, and not apart from it, then you see we are doing this to ourselves. If some good comes from this pandemic maybe it will be that more people reconnect with nature and have this epiphany, and maybe something will change.”
The melodious and the atmospheric
Aaron’s melodic abilities have resulted in a number of impressive tracks, such as ‘In Eyes Under Shadows’ and the indie-folk of ‘Digital Eyes’ and ‘Pocket’, but the album is also characterised by a number of compelling, atmospheric, pieces (‘Hour Of The Pearl’, ‘Us and Then’, ‘The Wake Of Your Swimming’ ), which show traces of My Bloody Valentine, The Velvet Underground, and 1990s lo-fi.
'I like all the noise that goes along with home recording, some dog barking, a squeaky chair, general fumbling. It's like the sellotape that sticks ideas together'
“I don't often use percussion, but I did for some of these tracks, and yes, I realised at some point I kinda sounded like a one-armed Mo Tucker on a very off day,”? Aaron says. “Also I had allowed myself to use copious reverb on some tracks. These 'atmospheric' songs had all been done late last year in a week or two. I was experimenting with mixing acoustic and amp sounds using one mic and seeing what happened.”
Initially Aaron was not happy with the final results and tried re-recording them, but, as he says, “none of the songs wanted to cooperate”. Eventually he went back to the originals and realised “they were how they should be and I should leave them alone”.
“For me, more often than not, the art of recording is the art of knowing when to give up,” he says. “This whole process was much more disorganised than my usual methods. It's kinda why, to me anyway, the album sounds like two EPs that crashed into each other, although thematically they are mostly coming from the same place.”
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The album was recorded in Aaron’s father’s shed which has become “a workshop for woodworking, art things, and playing music”. It is fitting that in such an environment, Aaron takes a very organic, spontaneous, approach when recording.
“My methods are as simple as possible,” he says. “I use an 8-track digital recorder and point a mic variously at instrument, amp, or mouth. Any effects are from pedals at time of recording. I never apply anything in post production and my rough mix is usually what gets mastered. I like all the noise that goes along with home recording, some dog barking, a squeaky chair, general fumbling. It's like the sellotape that sticks ideas together in an artist’s visual diary or sketchbook, it becomes part of the piece.”
Us and Then is available to stream and buy via Bandcamp (https://yawningchasm.bandcamp.com ).
