Barsuk Records is excited to release the video for Yellow Ostrich‘s "The Shakedown," off the band’s sophomore full-length, Strange Land. Directed by the band, the clip premiered via NYLON today. Singer/guitarist Alex Schaaf described the making of the video: "We made this video ourselves in Michael’s basement. With no budget and minimal gear, we explored the beauty of darkness. The white light represents the past, and the black light represents the future. Should I stay or should I go?"
Yellow Ostrich will continue to tour in support of Strange Land, heading out this week with Los Campesinos! The trek begins on June 16th at Plush in St. Louis and wraps up on June 30th at Bardot in Miami. Following the June tour, Yellow Ostrich will hit the festival circuit, performing at Lollapalooza in Chicago and Outside Lands in San Francisco, in addition to a Milwaukee date with Sharon Van Etten & Tennis.
Strange Land is the follow-up to the acclaimed The Mistress, and is self-produced with engineer Beau Sorenson (Death Cab for Cutie, Sparklehorse). With multi-instrumentalist Jon Natchez and drummer Michael Tapper in the fold, Strange Land presents Yellow Ostrich fully formed, no longer a bedroom project, but rather now a full-fledged power trio.
"The Mistress was a guy in a bedroom," says Schaaf, who grew up in Wisconsin and moved to New York in 2010. "Strange Land is a band. In a slightly bigger room." They recorded most of the tracks in six days in a little studio outside of Woodstock, New York, and so while The Mistress used a purposely limited palette of sounds, Strange Land has a dramatically expanded one: Tapper’s inventive, downright catchy drumming provides a polyrhythmic foundation for many of the songs while Natchez plays no less than 11 different kinds of horns on the album, lending an almost symphonic air, while his nimble bass playing helps propel the music in its exciting new direction.
Yellow Ostrich Tour Dates
6/16 – Plush – St. Louis, MO #
6/17 – Headliners Music Hall – Louisville, KY #
6/19 – The Orange Peel – Asheville, NC #
6/20 – The National – Richmond, VA #
6/21 – Maxwell’s – Hoboken, NJ #
6/22 – Le Poisson Rouge – New York, NY #
6/23 – Brooklyn Bowl – Brooklyn, NY #
6/24 – Brillowbox – Pittsburgh, PA #
6/26 – Ottobar – Baltimore, MD #
6/27 – Cat’s Cradle – Carrboro, NC #
6/28 – Masquerade – Atlanta, GA #
6/29 – Beachman Theatre – Orlando, FL #
6/30 – Bardot – Miami, FL #
8/2 – Turner Hall – Milwaukee, WI &
8/3-5 – Lollapalooza – Chicago, IL
8/9 – Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas – Las Vegas, NV
8/11 – Outside Lands – San Francisco, CA
# – w/ Los Campesinos!
& – w/ Sharon Van Etten, Tennis
