They Live for the Applause
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah concoct a departure of a fourth album for 2014
written by Gary Graff
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah will turn 10 this year. But founder and frontman Alec Ounsworth
isn’t anticipating a gala celebration. “I guess the celebration of it might be that we’re going to bring out a new record, and being on the road and playing songs from all our records,” says Ounsworth, who formed the indie rock group at Connecticut College in New London before moving to Brooklyn (although Ounsworth resides in Philadelphia). “We may do something else, but I try not to look back too much—even though people constantly remind me of it.”
Ounsworth and longtime cohort Sean Greenhalgh will certainly be able to look back at a decade of impressive achievement when the time comes, of course.CYHSY were one of the first bands to make their mark via the Internet before scoring a record deal, circulating music via social media and MP3 blogs, then really hitting the radar when Pitchfork Media gave the then-fledgling group’s self-titled 2005 debut a Best New Music designation. David Bowie and David Byrne were among fans spotted at early shows.
Not surprisingly, the labels came calling, and CHYSY inked with Britain’s Wichita Recordings,
with the debut charting in the Top 30 in the U.K. and also in Japan. In 2007, Some Loud Thunder got Ounsworth and company onto the Billboard 200 (at No. 47), followed by an appearance in the film The Great Buck Howard. But a third studio album was delayed by a brief band hiatus, during which Ounsworth released a solo album—Mo Beauty in 2009—as well as starting a side band, Flashy Python. Greenhalgh began producing other bands, and CYHSY members Robbie Guertin and Tyler Sargent started a group called Uninhabitable Mansions with Au Revoir Simone’s Annie Hart.
Hysterical appeared in 2011, countering rumors that CYHSY had broken up, and Ounsworth and Greenhalgh put together a stopgap EP called Little Moments this year, which mixed B-sides with some new material—and new directions. “Sean and I were just messing around with a lot of electronic stuff he was getting into,” Ounsworth says. “I dug it. I thought it was cool, and I still do, but at the same time it was pretty clearly something we did so people would have a general idea of what we were up to, and to keep people in the loop. It’s going to be one of those unusual artifacts that bands have, like Guided by Voices have a billion of.”
CYHSY’s real investment, meanwhile, is their fourth album, which the group plans to release in 2014. It was recorded with Flaming Lips’ cohort and Mercury Rev co-founder Dave Fridmann in upstate New York, culled from nearly 30 songs Ounsworth brought into the sessions. And, he predicts, the results lean towards the eccentric.
“Dave definitely plays to my more unusual instincts, which are not to give people precisely what they want at any given moment,” Ounsworth acknowledges. “But I do think it’s a bit more of a balance. I think it sounds like a more unusual Clap Your Hands record, but I’m not really sure what I can compare it to. I don’t even know exactly what the influence for some of these songs might have been, but I recall writing them in a similar span of about two weeks—then writing them about 10 times so they all fit together.
“So, yeah,” he adds with a laugh, “I’m not really sure what it sounds like. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it, to be honest.” But Ounsworth does cite some more recent listening that he feels affected his writing for the new set.
“I’ve been listening to a lot of the bands Dave has been [producing], partly for preparation and also because I’m just genuinely interested,” Ounsworth says. “It’s stuff like Tame Impala and the new MGMT record. I guess I’m starting to gather more ideas from contemporaries than I did in the past, when I sort of drew from Eno’s catalog or something like that.
“But, yeah, there’s Broken Social Scene, too... it’s often friends. I think it’s more convenient that way, ’cause I can ask them how they did something and then figure out how to use it for our purposes."
Ounsworth envisions another solo album in the future—“more of a pulled-back acoustic record with some friends,” he says—but CYHSY is the clear and present focus for the time being. “I’m pretty overwhelmed by this at the moment,” he admits. “I’m looking forward to finally putting these songs to rest and getting them out and then moving ahead—and probably moving on to something that’s just very different from it, which is the way I like to do things.”
isn’t anticipating a gala celebration. “I guess the celebration of it might be that we’re going to bring out a new record, and being on the road and playing songs from all our records,” says Ounsworth, who formed the indie rock group at Connecticut College in New London before moving to Brooklyn (although Ounsworth resides in Philadelphia). “We may do something else, but I try not to look back too much—even though people constantly remind me of it.”
Ounsworth and longtime cohort Sean Greenhalgh will certainly be able to look back at a decade of impressive achievement when the time comes, of course.CYHSY were one of the first bands to make their mark via the Internet before scoring a record deal, circulating music via social media and MP3 blogs, then really hitting the radar when Pitchfork Media gave the then-fledgling group’s self-titled 2005 debut a Best New Music designation. David Bowie and David Byrne were among fans spotted at early shows.
Not surprisingly, the labels came calling, and CHYSY inked with Britain’s Wichita Recordings,
with the debut charting in the Top 30 in the U.K. and also in Japan. In 2007, Some Loud Thunder got Ounsworth and company onto the Billboard 200 (at No. 47), followed by an appearance in the film The Great Buck Howard. But a third studio album was delayed by a brief band hiatus, during which Ounsworth released a solo album—Mo Beauty in 2009—as well as starting a side band, Flashy Python. Greenhalgh began producing other bands, and CYHSY members Robbie Guertin and Tyler Sargent started a group called Uninhabitable Mansions with Au Revoir Simone’s Annie Hart.
Hysterical appeared in 2011, countering rumors that CYHSY had broken up, and Ounsworth and Greenhalgh put together a stopgap EP called Little Moments this year, which mixed B-sides with some new material—and new directions. “Sean and I were just messing around with a lot of electronic stuff he was getting into,” Ounsworth says. “I dug it. I thought it was cool, and I still do, but at the same time it was pretty clearly something we did so people would have a general idea of what we were up to, and to keep people in the loop. It’s going to be one of those unusual artifacts that bands have, like Guided by Voices have a billion of.”
CYHSY’s real investment, meanwhile, is their fourth album, which the group plans to release in 2014. It was recorded with Flaming Lips’ cohort and Mercury Rev co-founder Dave Fridmann in upstate New York, culled from nearly 30 songs Ounsworth brought into the sessions. And, he predicts, the results lean towards the eccentric.
“Dave definitely plays to my more unusual instincts, which are not to give people precisely what they want at any given moment,” Ounsworth acknowledges. “But I do think it’s a bit more of a balance. I think it sounds like a more unusual Clap Your Hands record, but I’m not really sure what I can compare it to. I don’t even know exactly what the influence for some of these songs might have been, but I recall writing them in a similar span of about two weeks—then writing them about 10 times so they all fit together.
“So, yeah,” he adds with a laugh, “I’m not really sure what it sounds like. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it, to be honest.” But Ounsworth does cite some more recent listening that he feels affected his writing for the new set.
“I’ve been listening to a lot of the bands Dave has been [producing], partly for preparation and also because I’m just genuinely interested,” Ounsworth says. “It’s stuff like Tame Impala and the new MGMT record. I guess I’m starting to gather more ideas from contemporaries than I did in the past, when I sort of drew from Eno’s catalog or something like that.
“But, yeah, there’s Broken Social Scene, too... it’s often friends. I think it’s more convenient that way, ’cause I can ask them how they did something and then figure out how to use it for our purposes."
Ounsworth envisions another solo album in the future—“more of a pulled-back acoustic record with some friends,” he says—but CYHSY is the clear and present focus for the time being. “I’m pretty overwhelmed by this at the moment,” he admits. “I’m looking forward to finally putting these songs to rest and getting them out and then moving ahead—and probably moving on to something that’s just very different from it, which is the way I like to do things.”