Pete Yorn’s “Back and Fourth” on Columbia Records

Written by Susie Salva

Los Angeles resident Pete Yorn has traded in city life for the rolling plains of Nebraska to work on his fourth album entitled, “Back and Fourth”, on Columbia Records with Omaha producer Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes, Rilo Kiley).

Yorn spent two months in a guesthouse behind Mogis’s Omaha studio where he made the new album. He spent his spare moments driving around Nebraska exploring the wide-open landscapes and writing his new material. For the first time, Yorn wrote lyrics before composing melodies resulting in the most personal album to date. Escaping his everyday routine was something that shaped this new album. Yorn explains, “I think I found a different kind of inspiration there that helped carry the record home.” In Omaha, for fun Pete would check out local bands, gamble on riverboats, and hang out with the Mogis family.

“Back And Fourth”, sounds like no other Pete Yorn record because it was made like no other Yorn record. Yorn’s music can be compared to that of label mate Jakob Dylan and the Island styling of Jack Johnson. His songs reveal the freshness of new romance, lingering feelings of a broken relationship, and of a relationship gone bad. The lead track “Don’t Wanna Cry”, is a sentimental journey exploring love gone wrong.

“Paradise Cove,” is a summer soaked tune here Yorn is singing that he “got what I wanted but it wasn’t enough.” “Close,” again explores the complexity of romance and how it can go a rye. Then there is the anthemic song,
“Shotgun,” sounding very much like the Counting Crows examining all the consequences of a faltering romance.
Another stand out track is, “Country” something about it is very engaging and upbeat.

“Back And Fourth”, follows Yorn’s first three albums, which he considers a trilogy, and is his first album in three years. 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. These songs seem intensely personal and very raw.

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”.

For more on Pete Yorn go to www.peteyorn.com or www.myspace.com/peteyorn

Written by Susie Salva