News: LISTEN TO YAMANTAKA // SONIC TITAN’S VIRTUOSIC ALBUM ‘DIRT’ IN ITS ENTIRETY

Yamantaka // Sonic Titan is not a band than can be truncated into quick-hitting singles and punchy headlines—they’re an anomaly best witnessed from 10,000 feet above. The world is finally granted that vantage point with the band’s third album, DIRT, which is now streaming two days ahead of its proper release via Brooklyn Vegan. Listen to the album today.

 

Yamantaka // Sonic Titan is one of the most adept collectives both in the studio and on the stage, functioning as a Noh-Wave prog collective, a black-and-white (and sometimes red) theatre company, an operatic psych cult, and the speculative prophets of humanity’s impending doom. Similar to Sun Ra’s take on Afrofuturism, the band resists being pigeonholed into any one idea, sound or cultural perspective. Instead, they burst their references apart, creating something entirely new.

 

DIRT is YT//ST’s followup to 2013’s wildly acclaimed UZU, their second straight to be shortlisted for the Polaris Prize as one of the best Canadian albums of the year. Like UZU, the album takes place on the planet Pureland, now 10,000 years after the planet has flooded. With a sarcastic sigh that crosses political spectrums, DIRT confronts the lies that we tell ourselves and each other while begging the question, “Why push forward for an ideal while living on borrowed time?”

 

Though they’ve been an amorphous beast since forming in 2010, DIRT follows the group’s most significant evolution in years. Now totally Toronto-based, they’ve added new singer Joanna Delos Reyes, guitarist Hiroki Tanaka and bassist Brandon Lim, who, along with the towering drums of leader/artist Alaska B, singer/theatre artist Ange Loft and keyboardist Brendan Swanson, turn the group into a driving engine of sound. Live, the band can be sprawling and theatrical or concise and visceral, filling the stage with noise, melody and cacophony.

 

DIRT is due out via Paper Bag Records on March 23 and can be preordered here. Catch Yamantaka // Sonic Titan on the road now.

 

DIRT, TRACK LISTING: 

1. Karonhiake

2. Someplace

3. Dark Waters

4. Yandere

5. The Decay

6. Beast

7. Hungry Ghost

8. Dirt

9. Tawine

10. Out Of Time

 

YAMANTAKA // SONIC TITAN — ON TOUR:

Saturday, March 24 @ Baby’s All Right (Brooklyn, NY)

Sunday, March 25 @ Middle East (Cambridge, MA) 

Tuesday, March 27 @ L'Escogriffe (Montreal, QC) 

Wednesday, March 28 @ L’Anti (Québec City, QC)

Thursday, March 29 @ Baby G’s (Toronto, ON)

Friday, March 30 @ Refined Fool Brewing Co. (Sarnia, ON)

Saturday, March 31 @ Cactus Club (Milwaukee, WI) 

Sunday, April 1 @ 7th Street Entry (Minneapolis, MN)

Monday, April 2 @ Handsome Daughter (Winnipeg, MB) 

Wednesday, April 4 @ Amigos (Saskatoon, SK) 

Thursday, April 5 @ Starlite Room — Lower Hall (Edmonton, AB) 

Friday, April 6 @ The Palomino (Calgary, AB) 

Saturday, April 7 @ The Bartlett (Spokane, WA) 

Sunday, April 8 @ Vera (Seattle, WA) 

Monday, April 9 @ Doug Fir Lounge (Portland, OR) 

Tuesday, April 10 @ Bottom of the Hill (San Fransisco, CA) 

Thursday, April 12 @ Resident LA (Los Angeles, CA) 

Friday, April 13 @ Soda Bar (San Diego, CA) 

Saturday, April 14 @ Club Congress (Tucson, AZ) 

Tuesday, April 17 @ Barleycorns (Wichita, KS) 

Wednesday, April 18 @ Riot Room (Kansas City, MO) 

Thursday, April 19 @ Empty Bottle (Chicago, IL) 

Friday, April 20 @ Pioneer (Indianapolis, IN)

Saturday, June 9 @ Sideways (Helsinki, FI) 

Monday, June 11 @ ACUD Club (Berlin, GER)

Tuesday, June 12 @ Hafenklang (Hamburg, GER) 

Thursday, June 14 @ Green Zoo Festival (Kraków, PL)

Tuesday, June 19 @ Bau Wow (Brighton, UK) 

Wednesday, June 20 @ Electrowerkz (London, UK)

Thursday, June 21 @ DOK (Gent, BE) 

Friday, June 22 @ Supersonic (Paris, FR) 

Saturday, June 23 @ Vera (Groningen, NL)

Thursday, July 5 @ Festival d'été de Québec (QC)