record reviewer babbling:
"With the abundance of forgettable indie music these days, it's always a pleasure to find something that I'll remember, like this keeper." - Big Takeover Magazine
"It's nice to know a dude can be at this game for a really long time and still make interesting music that continues to be inventive and clever." - Hanging Like A Hex
"An extremely joyful record" - Whiskey From A Wire
"Classic lo-fi alt.American creativity and such a pleasure to have this album arrive this week and find he's sounding better than ever." - Organ, UK
"Official Collection of Words Interconnected To Create A Composite Identity Of Gregg Yeti, 2008"
From underground 'zine publisher and promoter, to musician, to running his own record label, Gregg Yeti has been a fixture in the Syracuse, NY music scene since the mid-90s. It’s only over the past few years that he began performing solo, however, primarily a result of the 2002 breakup of his former band The Flashing Astonishers (New Red Archives/Substandard).
Had you visited Gregg’s myspace page shortly after FA’s demise, you’d have seen the following self-penned description of his new project: “Gregg Yeti plays all of the instruments on his recordings, writes and sings the lyrics and music, records it all at home on his ancient PC, produces and reproduces the releases, arranges the cover art, and lives the d.i.y. ethic because he trusts no one to ever do anything right."
Gregg did eventually entrust a few friends to help piece together his first proper full-length release (which is a culmination of work from his earlier EPs along with a few new gems), namely Shawn Stoyle (Gracer, Sleepaway) on drums for four tracks, and most notably Jessica Rudy on lead & backing vocals. Rudy sings on the epic opener “Deal With You Perfect” with Syracuse friends Ashley Cox & Lisa Romano, and she leads with her lilting voice on the tragic “Half On The Way” (a song originally written by the great Massachusetts songwriter Jesse Sterling Harrison) and the airy “Colonize Your Eyes.” “I love women’s voices and I fully intend to include them whenever I can, even if it means giving up the singing spotlight,” he says.
Highlights such as “Laughter Be Your Slave” and “My Narcoleptic Sara” indicate that as a songwriter, Yeti’s years of paying his indie-rock dues have paid off in spades. And with songs like the dreamy “Deal With You Perfect” and the upbeat, shared guy/girl vox in “Adventures in Bad T-shirts” on to the ever-endearing “Brighter Than The Sky,” and “Erase Her Eraser”, Heart Palpitations… never ceases to entertain fans of intelligent lyrics and good hooks.
Preproduction studio work & mixing was done by Doug White of Watchmen Studios in Buffalo (Gym Class Heroes, Lemuria, Tearwave, Psyopus, Earth Crisis), and Jocko at Syracuse’s More Sound Studio (John Brown’s Body, Ed Gein, From A Second Story Window) handled final mixing & mastering.
A compilation of Gregg Yeti’s earlier EPs is planned for later this year, to be called Wonder Buckets.
