Yuno’s full-length debut, Blest, out May 16 on Sub Pop, finds the enigmatic indie-pop visionary transforming the emo-tinged suburban malaise of his 2018 Moodie EP into more expansive, widescreen pop drama — suited for big moves and bigger stages. The kaleidoscopic sound he devised as a millennial hermit in his childhood bedroom in Florida has since broadened his horizons, taking him on tour with Unknown Mortal Orchestra and Superorganism, and soundtracking various series for Netflix and HBO. Imbued with elements of dream-pop, rock, trap, and psychedelia, his eclectic songs serve as bids for love and connection, which especially in the fractured era of social media, have resonated with many listeners who find solace in his vulnerability.
Yuno was born in New York to Jamaican parents from the U.K., and grew up in the coastal Southern city of Jacksonville, Florida. Raised on a sonic diet of reggae and hip-hop records — his father's copy of 50 Cent's Get Rich or Die Tryin’ was on regular rotation in the family car throughout the 2000s — Yuno's musical tastes began to diverge after his grandfather gifted him a skateboard that he found in a garbage can. Eventually, and unexpectedly, Yuno's new hobby would dovetail with a future career in music.
"The first time I ever got on a skateboard, I broke my foot," he recalls. It was while he was on the mend that he fully immersed himself in video games like Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, famous gateways for many young punks of the millennial generation. As he studied skate videos to build on his athletic technique, he also cultivated a sixth sense as a composer and overall curator of vibes. "I'm always visualizing things when I'm making music and that helps me complete the full picture," says Yuno. "To this day I'm like, 'What does it need to make it fit in a skate video?'"
Having taught himself the bass and guitar at home, his early material began as impressions of harder bands like HIM, Rancid, and AFI; later, he would embrace anti-folk heroes like the Moldy Peaches and Daniel Johnston. With the advent of the social media predecessor Myspace, Yuno began discovering more eclectic local Jacksonville acts, like indie-pop darlings Black Kids — who offered a more diverse look and eclectic sound for the Bold City, which had then been defined by white radio rockers like Limp Bizkit, Yellowcard, and Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. "Seeing Black Kids' success showed me more of what I could do," says Yuno.
In time, Yuno taught himself to produce on his laptop, and filled his childhood bedroom with instruments to cultivate a more full-bodied sound, in which he married crunching pop-punk riffs with glimmers of synth strings Yuno uploaded his ballads of teenage longing to Soundcloud, where they began to catch fire within the indie blogosphere — and by 2014, caught the attention of Shabazz Palaces emcee and Sub Pop A&R representative Ishmael Butler. At that time, Yuno had never performed a live show, and could count the number of concerts he'd been to on one hand.
When Jordan Topf was just seven years old, his father abandoned him in a hotel room in Costa Rica. With the bleary shock of a polaroid flashbulb, Topf pulls the memory into clarity: his dad joining a woman he’d just met on a motorcycle ride, and leaving him behind, alone, for 24 hours. "I remember the sound of the engine roaring and dust flying, sitting at the hotel pool, half submerged as my heart sank," Topf says. "I crawled into a creaky bed in the darkness, alone, more alone than I'd ever felt. Thousands of miles away from home, in a country where I didn't speak the language." That trauma lived in the back of Topf’s mind for years until he found a path forward: writing a song about it called “Abandon”, the lead single from his self-titled debut as Windser (due May 14th). "I had to set myself free from the pain," he says. “I allowed myself to feel openly and truthfully, to write something that could help me understand my father and how I’d suppressed these feelings for so long."
As a veteran of other bands and a former tourmate of the likes of Portugal. The Man and alt-J, Topf has proven himself masterfully capable of translating those deep emotional moments in grand indie rock scale. “Abandon” is powered by an atmospheric, psychedelic groove with Radiohead-esque effected guitars, the verses tumbling out of his mouth. Windsor pairs intensely personal storytelling with sky-cracking hooks, Topf leading listeners through his diary but making them feel like it’s their own. “These are stories I’ve never told, shared in a way I’ve never shared, played in a way I’ve never played,” he says. “The songs deserved a certain level of care, so instead of working in my home studio, we rented John Congleton’s Los Angeles studio, Animal Rites, and invited all my favorite musicians to record.”
On the thrumming “These Days”, Topf turns pained emotions (“I’m so bored/ I’m depressed/ I’m a mess/ These days”) into a carbonated hook as the drums thump out like heavy footfalls on asphalt. For the similarly propulsive “Lose You”, Topf tries to cling onto the last bits of a fading love in a soaring falsetto reminiscent of Band of Horses. Topf co-wrote the track with Day Wave frontman Jackson Phillips, the duo unlocking their best postpunk shuffle.
Through its hard-hitting songwriting and compelling instrumentation, Windser reflects all Topf has been through, holding the mirror up so listeners can explore their own past too. To that end, album highlight “Backyard” works almost like a sequel to “Abandon”; no longer stuck in the moments of his past, Topf can now chart his path forward. Co-written with Morgan Nagler, herself a co-writer of Phoebe Bridgers’ “Kyoto”, the track finds Topf looking out the back window of his home, his mind literally racing from memory to memory. “It’s about realizing you’re a product of your parents, your environment, but also that you get to decide if you’re going to repeat family history or change,” he says.
Both in his life leading up to this debut and through the album itself, Topf has learned how to grow into himself—how to face the pain and embrace the beauty. Across Windser, he shares his journey of coming to an understanding of his relationship with his father, of the pain in his past, of becoming more aware of his own emotions. But thankfully it didn’t end there. “I had reached a ceiling and I was cracked wide open, but I also reached the point of finding everlasting love as a means of safety, security, and changing the course of my family history,” he says. The dreamy ballad “Shut Up and Kiss Me” honors that love in an airy falsetto and blocky piano that recalls the Plastic Ono Band. Topf wrote the song for his wife, the pair having freshly married after a decade together. And after the exploration of pain in his past, the track highlights the timeless emotion that only Windser can reach: the freeing power of love, and how the world comes together when it’s right.
