When my best friend’s birthday is coming up, I decide whether to buy a cake from the store or to make it from scratch at home. A cake from the store has its pros: it’s guaranteed to taste half-decent and I know exactly what I’m getting. Where is the fun in that? I would rather bake a cake at home and throw in a bunch of sprinkles and fillings and make it uniquely mine. Sure, it could end up being a culinary catastrophe, but that is part of the adventure. Aiden Yobear takes the “from scratch” approach on his latest record, Twin Reapers by writing, composing and recording the entire project in his apartment. Sure, the album is not clean-cut, but it was never intended to be. It has all the imperfections that make low fidelity music so enjoyable.
In his song “Nascar comp 2020” Aiden proclaims, “I’m not wasting time, I’m just having fun.” With 10 full-length LPs under his belt in the past two years, he is certainly not wasting time. And with the raw, yet colorful sounds that come out of his work, you can definitely tell that he is having fun.
Aiden seems to have it all: he works in New York City as a model and spends his free time making music. On Twin Reapers, Aiden takes the listener on a tour through the duller moments of his life. Nothing is left out, even the mundane task of waiting for the bus like it is a full-time job. He is unafraid to be completely transparent to his audience by confiding in them his personal battles with vices, uncertainty about the future, and missing the way things used to be. The album features a few ballads, but most of the tracks are upbeat pop songs. Aiden’s disheartening lyrics contrast his in-your-face experimental tendencies. While the song “if i die tomorrow it’s murder” rolls in with a dance-friendly beat, Aiden sings “I don’t want to live forever, I’d rather die on Monday.” Although most of the songs contain gloomy subject matter, Aiden throws in a handful of funny one-liners. In the song “Cool Virgin” he sings, “I am a money maker. I make pieces of paper. I stuff them in my jacket. How’s that for out of pocket?”
The record has a few guests — most notably Aiden’s longtime collaborator, 1,361 Kodak Moment, who is featured on a handful of tracks. The pair have made their names synonymous with each other by collaborating on virtually every project they have put out. Their chemistry blossoms on the track “U said what u said” when Aiden asks 1,361 Kodak Moment to hop on the song by speaking through sampled warped snickers and dog barks.
The do-it-yourself aesthetic bleeds through every track on Twin Reapers, but so does the playful songwriting and arrangements of Aiden Yobear. It is extraordinary that Aiden was able to make such a cohesive record with the limited amount of resources he had. It shows that anyone can make an album, but not everyone can make a good album.
Listen to Twin Reapers here.
Watch the music video for “getting sued by scooby doo” below.
