Post Yoga - Post Yoga
Bristol-based DIY musician Chris Barrett musician levels up on his latest album, created entirely on a £4 charity shop keyboard
Post Yoga, the project of Bristol-based DIY stalwart Chris Barrett (Something Anorak/Pictures of Belgrade), has revealed the details of his new self-titled album. While sticking to the core ideology of the project – writing and recording the entirety on his charity-shop-bought Yamaha keyboard – Post Yoga undoubtedly shows further refinement of the project’s sound and scope; “I’ve got a better understanding of what I want this project to be,” Barrett asserts. This is borne out in Post Yoga’s compelling iciness, metallic sheen and precise production, which provides the perfect framework for Barrett’s evocative voyages into his psyche.
While the self-imposed limitation of sticking to the one instrument may seem like a hindrance, Barrett has found it freeing and inspiring, and it has pulled him to whole new depths for his musical output. One of the main advantages of solely using the Yamaha PSS-170 is its ease; “If I have an idea and want to write or record something, I’ll just plug in, rapidly press something, and go from there,” he says. During the COVID era, when isolation and confusion are constantly pressing in on us, this immediacy of expression has been crucial for Post Yoga.
When pandemic-imposed restrictions swept across Britain in March 2020, rather than be alone in his own bedsit, Barrett moved into his friend’s spare room. One of the things that he brought with him was his trusty Yamaha keyboard, and over the course of the next few weeks, recording on the floor of his temporary bedroom, he unloaded his convoluted mixture of personal feelings into ten brand new tracks that make up the album. Taking cues from Scandinavian deities The Knife in how he turns skeletal ideas into electro wonderlands, while maintaining the anarchic spirit inherent in Animal Collective, another of his main touchstones, Post Yoga is a deceptively complex collection.
On an emotional and lyrical level, Barrett’s observations of human interaction and his own experiences in the world unfold into minimalist verses, every bit as beguiling as the sounds that house them. Using his voice as an instrument that can roam from baritone to screechy, depending on what the song calls for, Post Yoga finds Barrett touching on personal neuroses, relationship breakdowns, unhealthy codependency, the pandemic predicament and much more. Although he often sings from the point of a mysterious character – “like wearing a cloak” as he puts it – Barrett’s personal experiences colour every image. “The whole record is very open and honest about me,” he says. “I don’t believe in hiding, I believe in being genuine with your art, whatever it is.”
Perhaps most telling of this mentality is album centrepiece and new single “Dead”, in which Barrett repeats the phrase “you will only love me when I am dead” throughout, chopping it, warping it and rephrasing it over menacingly bobbing chords, inviting you to meditate on the idea of mortality and ponder what it means to be a creator, revealing yourself to the world with no guarantee of reciprocation. For Barrett, “Dead” is about his fluctuating relationship with his music: “I’ve been doing music for a long time, I fall out of love with it and then I’m back in love with it, it’s just been back and forth for 10-15 years. So, that line in itself does resonate with me, because I’ve made a lot of music and most of it has never been heard,” he says. “It’s a bit silly as well; I hope it gets perceived with an element of humor and satire as opposed to completely pompous pretentious waffle.”
Barrett filmed the one-shot video for “Dead” at home, featuring himself at work with his keyboard, giving us an insight into the isolated creation of Post Yoga’s music. “It’s supposed to be a document of how tedious this time is for a lot of people, being at home and feeling like you’ve got to be creative because you’ve got all this time,” he says. “But actually, it’s been a very uncreative and uninspiring time for the most part.”
On the inscrutable “Knotts”, Post Yoga takes an incisive look into a deteriorating relationship in his own truly idiosyncratic manner. “It’s an observation of a relationship that has fallen apart in front of the two people’s eyes, and they’re helpless to stop it,” he says. “It’s sung by someone who feels like they’re putting more into it than they’re getting from the other person.”
Laying out an unsettling amalgamation of tones and clicks, he peppers “Knotts” with lines that are humorous (“Shouldn’t we ride together? / What do you think I bought this for?”), cryptic (“keep on coming chipper / don’t forget where you belong”), heartbreaking (“could have been so much better / could have kept an open door”) and downright creepy (“could have fed me to the leeches / could have bled me out some more). By the time “Knotts” reaches its disintegrating finale and conclusive statement “you and me are going home,” you’re not quite sure how to feel – but you’re left wishing you could hear what happens next.
“Bison” takes inspiration from an unlikely news story that Barrett found on YouTube, about a couple who’ve adopted a bison and take care of it like a pet, allowing it into their house. “It was like a puppy, it was completely dependent on that couple to look after it, despite being a huge wild beast,” he recalls. Extrapolating from that, Post Yoga’s “Bison” is a meditation on unhealthy codependent relationships; “each verse is talking about how once you find this person you hold onto them and don’t let them go, from the male and female perspectives,” he says. “It’s definitely not healthy.” This cynicism translates into the song, where zipping synths and rattling percussion underscore Barrett’s sardonic observations: “pray he knows his shit when the time comes,” he sings to the woman, while for the man he suggests “pray they hold you up when you fall,” the coldness in his tone suggesting a personal history with these fragile dependencies.
Elsewhere on Post Yoga, Barrett lays his eyes on several other people and issues he sees in the world around him. Early single “Phil” couples myriad hooks with a tale of someone who waltzes through life with no care for how he affects others. “Wandr”, with its lo-fi Prince sound palette, takes aim at self-absorbed yet self-pitying people, stepping mercilessly into their shoes with lines like “We started to pull and you looked bored.” The gruesome “Sweatin” recalls an episode from Barrett’s youth when he woke up on a beach with glass in his head, unable to recall the night before, using it in the song as a metaphor for the question of “what the hell am I doing with my life?” that perpetually lingers in his mind.
Post Yoga concludes with “Iffy”, which, despite being the clearest allusion to the pandemic, finishes the album on a positive note as he asserts “we’ll survive and we will be fine.” Ultimately, this finale speaks to the true spirit of Chris Barrett, someone who has been putting out music for more than a decade with little to no expectation, just a contentment to continue living, creating, and expressing himself, come what may.
