Gut Buster

Yosa Peits music is a hard-to-define combination of warped soul vocals, detached rhythms, and alien textures. Her work processes ideas gleaned from pop music, but she seems far more interested in manipulating sounds for the purpose of intense personal expression rather than writing conventional, hook-based songs. She titled her second album Gut Buster because she was dealing with an auto-immune disease affecting her intestines while she was creating the record. Her challenging, deconstructed music channels physical discomfort and displacement, but at the same time, it embraces boundless freedom. The title points to how bold, gutsy, and fearless this music is, as well as its sly humor and playfulness. Vocals are often twisted into high-pitch squeaks and chirps, while "bb moon" tweaks Peits bass playing until it turns into a weird cyber-chicken croak. The detached bedroom soul of Leilas Like Weather or Tirzah are the closest easy comparisons, along with Eartheaters uneasy avant-pop and the fragmented glamour of Arcas early albums. There are traces of Burial in "LOOK AROUND"s flashes of yearning, while the choppy breakbeats and easygoing guitar riffs of "PEPPER PLANE" are much more gleeful. "GUT IS GOD (Gate of Discord)," a mostly unaccompanied choral piece, ends the album with eerie, multi-tracked cries that seek bodily transcendence. ~ Paul Simpson