yeah yeah yeahs talk up new second album on pitchfork

Yeah Yeah Yeahs to Reinvent Themselves on Next LP
Ryan Schreiber & Kati Llewellyn report:
A few weeks back, Pitchfork reported on the slow progress of the new Yeah Yeah Yeahs album, which is being said to find the band taking a markedly folkier direction than on 2002's raucous screamathon Fever to Tell. Our appetites whetted by the news, we quickly scheduled a phone call with head Yeah Karen O in hopes she could clear up all this "acoustic guitar and tabla" business. Turns out they haven't even started recording yet! But not to worry: The process is officially underway and rapidly gaining steam, with the band projecting completion of the album in the fall.

But first, the pre-production: Presently holed up in Los Angeles at the home studio of their buddy Sam (alias: Squeak E. Clean, a name you may recognize from his stunning recent collaboration with Karen O, "Hello Tomorrow", which was used in a popular Spike Jonze-directed Adidas spot) to concentrate on writing and planning the material for the new record. Then, next week, operations will shift to David Sitek's Brooklyn-based Staygold Studios, which will just be getting freed up by the completion of TV on the Radio's next long-player (of which we will certainly be bearing more news in the coming days). There, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs will begin the initial tracking of their new material.

The YYY's 2003 debut was pieced together with a compilation of songs the band had written over the course of two years, but says Karen, the process for the new album is vastly different, with all but three or four of the songs they wrote in the early aftermath of Fever to Tell being considered for inclusion. "There was definitely more of a sense of urgency with the last record-- we'd wanted a really high energy level. This record by no means is urgent. It comes out when we're ready to put it out, hopefully. We're trying to be a little more patient with it, and we're trying to raise the bar a little bit, too. We've never taken on a studio album with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs before and it's this totally different writing process for us, so we're kind of seeing what we need to do as we go along."

Though sketches of the album are still a bit rough, Karen O does say that she knows what she doesn't want to do this time around. "We don't have any real game plan yet, but we're trying to raise the bar a little bit," she explains. "There's aspects of my persona-- of Karen O-- that I'm definitely adverse to at this point." This time out we can expect much less distortion on her vocals in an effort to create a new character for Ms. O, exemplifying the level of maturity she has reached as both an artist and person post-debut. "I think it's really important to us that it's not Fever to Tell, Part 2," she says. "But at this point, who knows? It's at a point where we have no idea."

Though tracks and titles are still in the works (when pried for ideas, Karen suggested "Apache Release" with a laugh), the YYYs are aiming for an October finish and a February release, giving them several months to finalize the sound of the album, as well as a new stage show.