Yeasayer: Woodhouse Interviews

When I first saw Yeasayer, it was at an outdoor music festival in Houston—-in June.

If you’re from Texas, you know how horrific this is. It was 107 degrees when the Brooklyn boys took the stage. Front man Chris Keating sweated through every article of clothing he had, making the foot around him a salty splash zone. But it all made some sort of humid sense. Yeasayer, fresh off of the hallucinatory highs of their debut All Hour Cymbals had decided to dive into the pop deep end. But, as a band who traded in fever dreams, it would have to be utterly baffling.

So it was and Odd Blood landed at the beginning of the decade, a beguiling, hypnotic, fiendishly dancable record that rode the undeniable bass groove of Ira Wolf Tuton and the dueling song-writing chops of Keating and Anand Wilder. It was as grand as it was unstable, pop mutated to some future form.

As we count down the greatest music of the 2010s, Odd Blood and its lead single “Ambling Alp” made the list. We sat down with Wilder to discuss the record and what it means to him now. So, listen to the podcast, read our thoughts on Odd Blood and “Ambling Alp” and hear why we think they’re the best of the 10s.

“I think we’re always interested in self-sabotage. ”

— Anand Wilder