Review Summary: best band cutest name impeccable midwest twinkle no zits
Tiny Yawn's latest EP begins with the single most infectious instrumental nugget I've heard this year, an elaborate guitar motif which
should tie itself into knots and consign the band to the same twinkly irrelevance as so many of its indie/math predecessors — yet it somehow glides in as effortlessly and fully-formed as if some unacknowledged god of falling leaves had blown it across a friendly breeze. It's perfect, tuneful as anything, buoyant if you need it to be but with enough imported Midwestern pinings to graze anyone's sentimental side. It plays like the imminent prospect of a hot meal you wish you could share with a person you have just parted ways with; it feels like being momentarily conscious of everything that's right in the world
just enough to feel a need to hold onto it, protect it, hope for it to consume you. I fell head over heels immediately.
This all occurred to me before vocalist/keyboardist Megumi Takahashi had even hit her first verse, after which things took a whole different shape: her full tones and emotive inflections stole the spotlight, and I was delighted to realise that Tiny Yawn are
not a 'guitar band', but an all-round proficient gang of talents and an apparent overlooked treasure in today's indie landscape. Their technical prowess is so subservient to their razor-sharp songwriting sensibilities that it never posits a main event – get a load of how "summer hole" fuels the EP's most kinetic verse/chorus pacing with the most fleet-fingered acoustic tap/slap licks you'll hear this year – yet
paddle ship would still be a standout in its field were it released as an instrumental.
Thank God it's not! Delivery aside, Takahashi's lyricism is full of tender ambivalence, be it her seemingly endless string of
mono no aware imagery (best sampled on "Hanaitada", itself a term for the raft-like appearance of fallen petals over water), her nonplussed address in "yellow parrot" (
there's god smiling only on you – that's not a bad lie / you might as well forget to breathe), or her affecting commentary in "Yawn" (
you're sweet, and you're never able to say the important things). She adds both a relatable voice and an sage perspective to a record already brimming with heart, though I think it's the latter factor that gives Tiny Yawn such an edge within their field: subtract Kinsella-patented young adult ineptitude, add a healthy measure of cool-headed reflection and can-do cheer, and you have the basis for a rare emo-adjacent outing that doesn't make you want to wilt on exposure. I for one have never felt more alive.
