Don't Think I Ever Mean Goodbye

As I said in my "Best of 2017" post that I put up earlier this week, I've had the idea of a writing a post explaining why I think The Yunahon Mixtape by Oso Oso is so great for a while now. Actually, I've been kicking it around for almost a year, because said album came out on January 13th, 2017.

God, what a bad intro. But we're movin' on!

I discovered Oso Oso through seeing them open for The Hotelier in 2014. I wasn't familiar with them, but from a friend's description of "emo Third Eye Blind", I was pretty sure I would be into it. They put on an amazing set that night and I was instantly sold. After that I dug deep roots into their first full-length Real Stories of True People Who Kind of Looked Like Monsters (I truly hate typing out that title) and Oso Oso quickly established themselves as one of my favourite active bands.

They toured through the south of Canada in the fall of 2016 and I somehow found out about their Toronto date a day or two before, as it was at a small DIY venue with no bigger bands. An acoustic act opened, whose friends seemed to make up most of the audience, and a bad, albeit very new, American band was providing support. After that second band, there was a huge exodus of the crowd, as they weren't interested in sticking around for the only act on the bill with any sort of serious recorded output. The crowd for Oso Oso ended up being a couple, the promoter, and me.

The band, of course, put on an amazing set featuring an even mix of RSTPWKLLM's biggest jams and a few new songs that I would later come to recognize as being on The Yunahon Mixtape. Playing well as a unit live is so hard and competency is basically only established through touring a lot. One of the best parts of being a music fan is seeing a band when they are at the top of their game live. Even better is when you are watching a band you're all in on kill it and their set is the way you're introduced to a new song.

I was eager to hear what Oso Oso would do next and during the set they slipped in "the cool". I was over the moon because the new stuff sounded just as good, if not better than the old stuff, but also a little bummed because I had no idea when the album was coming out and would have to wait to hear it.

Then the band released it out of the blue on Saturday morning. Being a Bomb the Music Indsutry! stan, I've come to love surprise releases. I think there's something to be said for foregoing the hype machine and letting the songs speak for themselves. Very quickly I realized that I like the album just as much as the old one and found it growing on me more and more each listen, with it far surpassing their first one after not too long.

There are a couple of reasons that I think this album is so special, so I'll try my best to explain them now.

The first thing that jumps out at you is the title and its inclusion of the word "mixtape". While the album isn't a mixtape in the hip-hop sense of the word, it is one in the coming-of-age sense of the word. Yunahon is a concept album about a courtship and the life of the ensuing relationship, with each song representing a different stage and major event in the narrative. At the same time, the album is also supposed to be the mixtape that the protagonist gives to his romantic interest. I haven't run into many meta-albums like this in my life, but I love it.

The lyrics of each song set a specific scene, which makes the story feel lived-in. Especially songs like "shoes (the sneaker song)" and "the slope"; they put me right in the story and also make me immediately associate them with scenes from my own life.

Sidebar: Anything meta is my jam. I soak it up like sponge, baby. I started saying baby a lot. Is it ironic? Do I actually think it's cool? Who knows!

Making an album that is at once a story, the guide to that story, and an element of the story is a pretty big jump concept-wise for any band to make. Oso Oso also mirrored that by subtly changing their sound as well. I loved the lead-heavy emo rock riffing that made up True Stories, but I also must concede that the more nuanced approach the band took on Yunahon works a lot better. They manage to walk the tight rope of easing back and simplifying the chord progressions to make them catchier, while also layering in more guitar tracks to fill out the sound and doing more interesting bass and drum work to distinguish each song. If this was easy, every band would do it.

I saw a lot of reviews of this album that referred to it as a nostalgic throwback to the indie bands that were critical darlings in the early-to-mid 2000's, but I'm not much of an expert on that music, so any comments I could make would be moot. Still feel like I have to mention that though. I think Death Cab for Cutie was popular then? Fuck if I know, The OC sucked.

I generally have an album, podcast, or TV show on at all times while I'm doing things at home, so Rebecca is forced to put up with my tastes. This album got played (is still getting played) ad nauseum as soon as it came out and I kind of forced it upon them. The album quickly became the soundtrack to our home life and before long, every song was about different stages of my relationship with Becks and the feeling of falling in love and finding somebody who completely turns your heart upside down.The capper was seeing them this past fall together, when them ripping into "shoes (the sneaker song)" got me close to tears.

It's nice that The Yunahon Mixtape can remind me of nights in Guelph when Rebecca and I had just met and were going to see a friend's band play, but also remind me how in love I am at this moment. It's a big reason why this is one of my favourite records that I've ever heard.