Yeasayer co-leader Anand Wilder recently released the new solo single “Appointment in Samarra,” and now he announced his sophomore solo album, Psychic Lessons, due August 22 via Last Gang/MNRK (pre-order). Compared to the folky vibes of 2022’s I Don’t Know My Words, “Appointment in Samarra” is more in overtly psychdelic territory and new single “Bog People” is too. It’s a bouncy, dizzying psych-pop song that sounds like something that could’ve fit on Yeasayer’s 2007 debut album All Hour Cymbals.
The album was made with co-producer Jachary (L’Rain, Tasha) and Yeasayer collaborator Walter Fancourt. Here’s what Anand said about the new song:
Walter Fancourt and I had made this sort of ’90s sounding boy band inspired beat with screechy synth bends, so I just laid three chords over it and really went for it in a ’90s alt-rock vein. And I hope the video captures some of that fisheye lens, VHS-style, ’90s fun. Directed by Patrick Drummond (Starcleaner Reunion), with some extra footage shot by my seven-year-old daughter Zazie and childhood friend Bernard Feinsod, I wanted it to look like a ’90s Beastie Boys video or something. We shot the nightclub dream sequence at the Rodeo Bar, where I DJ vinyl Third Tuesdays of every month.
So it’s kind of like a conversation between a know-it-all museum tour guide and a horrified museumgoer with scraps of anthropological history describing all these little details from what we think we know about this ritual sacrifice, combined with my poetic conjecture trying to get inside the minds of the people. Was it a punishment or a reward? Were the onlookers jealous or hysterical? And who is being offered up for sacrifice today.
Check it out below.
Tracklist
1. Appointment In Samarrah
2. Broken Beyond Repair
3. Molly’s Song
4. Darling Please
5. Social Exile
6. Give Us A Wink
7. Tech Job
8. Selkie Bride
9. He Believed In It
10. Get A Dog
11. Bog People
12. Living Beside You