yawevans.bandcamp.com/releases

Yaw Evans is an electronic music artist from South London known for his new and experimental approach to House, UKG, Jungle, Ambient and UK techno. Creatively inspired by London, Yaw’s distinctive electronic style is explorative, merging textures of his city’s culture, music and identity into his sound. These influences have coalesced to form his debut album, Memories of Now. Mystery Circles is proud to support this album with a release on all digital platforms and a limited edition of 50 cassettes. The release date is December 4th, 2020. Tape + Bandcamp digital preorder opens Nov 20th with the release of the“Lion Paw” video as the 1st single. Below are some excerpts of discussions with Yaw regarding his approach to the record.

INSPIRATION // INFLUENCE

“I see myself as a bit of a genre nomad and I wanted to create a set of tracks that spanned the various genres of electronic music that I’m into, whilst also not sticking to not just one tempo or style. Secondly, I wanted to use audio as a way of invoking memories of a given time and or place. The project is littered with audio recordings. Recording from my local underground station, local market streets, old radio sets, as well as past recordings of open public spaces like parks.”

TRACK DETAILS

“The title track is inspired by my fathers dementia which since the start of Covid lockdown measures, has seen a rapid decline in his memory, both short and long term. In particular with that track, I wanted to capture a sense of confusion and disorientation. There’s filtered vocals moving though the stereo field, which repeat over time but for the most part you can’t quite understand what they are saying. So you are not quite sure if you remember hearing it from earlier on in the track. Further, much of the ambience in that track (as well as others on the project) are made up of field recordings. The sound of a night club smoking area (pre-covid) or the sound of the street from my local market in Brixton.”

“There are vocal samples taken from old pirate radio recordings from the early to mid 00’s which I think give the opening track a sense of nostalgia. Especially for anyone who was lucky enough to live through that era of FM radio from in and around London.”

Yaw is also heavily involved in producer culture, sharing his methods + music with the vibrant online communities of hardware and production enthusiasts. He posts many of his live sets on his Instagram and YouTube. The closing track, “512 (Live Jam)” is indicative of that scene:

“The final track is a a recording of me jamming at my modular synth with drums provided by the Digitakt and WMD drum modules, with performance FX’s from the MC707. The whole thing is pretty raw and was done in one take with no real rehearsal and no post editing. Only compression and EQ in Ableton.”