Yeasayer broke up two years ago, and now co-vocalist Anand Wilder is launching a solo career. His debut solo album, I Don’t Know My Words, is due in 2022 via Last Gang, and in a new interview with Stereogum, he says "I was listening to a lot of Fairport Convention and that kind of stuff [while making the record]. Poly Styrene — her solo album Translucence. As far as contemporary stuff, I really love Aldous Harding and Cate Le Bon."
The first single is "Delirium Passes," a tender psychedelic folk-pop song that's cut from a similar cloth as the calmer, Anand Wilder-sung Yeasayer songs. It's a lovely first taste, and it comes with a video directed by Derek Howard that stars Ben Sinclair from HBO's High Maintenance. Here's what Anand told Stereogum about the song and video:
The line “delirium passes” I got from this James Joyce short story. I just read literature and write down little phrases.
This friend of mine, Derek Howard — we had collaborated on this score for an art piece that he had done here in the studio. He was like, “Hey, if you ever want to do a music video, I’ve got some film.” Then we got together and I was like, “I’ve got this short story that I got this line from. Why don’t we just make a short film based on this short story, and we’ll make that the video?” That was the jumping off point. I asked a good friend of mine to be in it, Jesse Jenkins, and then I asked Ben Sinclair to be in it, from High Maintenance. I had met him at a Sean Nicholas Savage concert just before COVID. I have him playing these two different parts. We shot it all on film. Shooting on film is just crazy, because you’re just like, “Okay, I think we got it,” and you don’t see it!
I think it perfectly suits the tone of the album. It’s not trying to be sexy or edgy in any way. It’s edgy in that it’s very odd in a Monty Python meets a creepy Big Red or Folgers commercial from the ’80s. I was so excited about that. I’m trying to just maintain that excitement right now.
