![]() ![]() On the plane back, Burslem ate and drank to excess, knowing that when he touched down, he had no money, no home, and, worryingly, no album. It was an eye-opener, like, what the fuck are we going to?” “That was just going to sound like the first record. “It had become pretty apparent that the three of us in a room bashing chords out, wasn’t really turning me on,” shrugs Oli. Landing ragged in Australia though, things got worse. Perhaps predictably, the first two or three weeks went by in a drunken blur with nary a note written. ![]() Things started going off the rails before Burslem and Rawson even got to Aus, as Oli decided to go to Tokyo for a month beforehand – “you know, for the isolation, to do all the writing”. “I thought recording would take ten days,” says Oli, sheepishly, “but it didn’t quite work out that way.” Jones, indeed, soon upped sticks for Melbourne, but after a chance meeting in a pub in Dalston with Jay Watson from Tame Impala’s touring band, Burslem hatched a hare-brained scheme for the band to convene in Melbourne to rehearse together for ten days, then move across Australia to lay down album two, on Watson’s invitation, at Tame mainman Kevin Parker’s place in Perth. We didn’t particularly think the band had a future, but then it took off, and it was ace, and after the Scala, there was an opportunity, and some money, to do another record, and I really wanted to give it a go.” “Andy and I had been friends since we were three years old,” he says, “and he was always gonna get married and move away at some point. ![]() After getting snapped up by Rough Trade management, and cutting one of several feral early EP’s for Jack White’s Third Man Records, the trio of Burslem, bassist A ndy Jones (Oli’s childhood friend from Wolverhampton), and drummer Elliot Rawson, set an all-but-moribund UK alt-rock scene alight with 2016’s inaugural long-player, Alas Salvation, but for Oli, that year’s final career-high show at London’s Scala felt like an endgame, rather than an achievement to build upon. The story began after Yak had completed a debut campaign which itself had played out like a dream. It’s nice to push yourself to the limit, and I can say now that I don’t give a shit what anyone thinks, because it’s a document of that time, and it’s honest and open, and I couldn’t have done or given much more, which is a great feeling.” “I don’t want it to be a boo-hoo story,” says Burslem, of the record’s tortuous gestation. It’s one of those once-in-a-decade records, whose sheer sense of belief and commitment pulsates through every nanosecond of boundary-breaking sound – like Spiritualized’s Ladies And Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space, and Tame Impala’s Innerspeaker, both of whose creators had a part to play in its genesis. Listening to The Pursuit Of Momentary Happiness, you frequently feel the white-knuckle monomania of Yak’s mission. Who else these days invests every single penny available to them into recording, to the point where they become homeless, and have to sleep in the back of a Citroën estate? Tickets are £10 in advance (more on the door) and are available from Earworm Records, the venue in person or online via See Tickets.įew albums in rock ‘n’ roll history have seen its creator’s obsession veer so close to self-destruction, as Yak’s The Pursuit Of Momentary Happiness.For singer, guitarist and driving force Oli Burslem, making his band’s second album became about pursuing his artistic vision at the expense of all else, including his own financial security, and mental health. ![]()
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