Mike Mogis-Produced Pete Yorn Due

Rick Rubin dips his hands into the project too.

By Blurt Staff

On June 23, Columbia records will release Pete Yorn's 'Back and Fourth' marking a new musical chapter in which the acclaimed singer and songwriter has taken a different approach to writing and recording with stunning results. 'Back and Fourth' follows Yorn's first three albums, which he considers a trilogy, and is his first album in three years. Yorn wrote all ten songs on 'Back and Fourth' and recorded the album in Omaha, NE, with producer Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes, Rilo Kiley). Columbia's Co-Chairman Rick Rubin helped guide the project from its earliest demo stages to final mastering.

The songs on 'Back and Fourth' range from lilting mandolin lullabies to bracing anthems. But there's a thread running through the album - an organic feel to the arrangements, a careful pacing to the sequence, a penetrating truth to the stories - that's unmatched by anything else in Yorn's catalogue.

'Back and Fourth' sounds like no other Pete Yorn record because it was made like no other Pete Yorn record. For the first time, Yorn wrote lyrics before composing melodies, resulting in his most personal songs to date. When it came time to record, Yorn traded the family, friends and routines of his life in Los Angeles for the relative solitude of Omaha, where he spent two months in 2008 making the album. And while Yorn played virtually all the instruments on his first three albums, he assembled a top shelf band for 'Back and Fourth', including drummer Joey Waronker (Beck), pianist/arranger Nate Wolcott (Bright Eyes, The Faint, Rilo Kiley), guitarist Jonny Polonsky, bassist Joe Karnes (John Cale), and backing vocalist Orenda Fink (Azure Ray). "That's the essential approach to the new album," says Yorn. "I wanted to share my songs with a group of players who I respected, and then share the experience of recording them together as a group."

Pete Yorn will tour extensively in support of 'Back and Fourth' and also plans to release more new music in 2009.

Track Listing:

1. Don't Wanna Cry
2. Paradise Cove
3. Close
4. Social Development
5. Shotgun
6. Last Summer
7. Thinking of You
8. Country
9. Four Years
10. Long Time

[Photo credit: Autumn de Wilde]