Ending 2015
Well, sometimes things don’t pan out as you think they will. Uploading the single ”Unrefined/Poison” to the digital stores we tried to set the release date to February but when we checked it afterwards it said a.s.a.p. and that meant work! Now we had to distribute the new songs to all radio stations fast, get teaser vids out on YouTube and all that comes with a release. We were lucky to get a hold of Arroe Collins to make arrangements for an interview and then our Internet connection died. Had to solve that by buying more access over the phone and connecting the computer to it with Bluetooth. Of course this was holiday season and it took almost two weeks before the normal connection was established again. Luckily we were able to get the job done in time for the release on December 29.
Great start!
So, one of the first things we did starting up this year was another great conversation about music with Arroe for iHeartRadio. We were also asked to do a station call sign for WFAQ LP-FM in Wisconsin and had a blast with that too. The new songs were doing fine to start with, but something happened to this release at Spotify. In the process of solving this matter we were told to take down all Yoyo releases and close that account, leaving all published work under our new name Yoyo xno only. We had noticed that many of our listeners already moved over to the new links – but not all. As the original links went down we could see that we lost a number of listeners out there and so we had to start building that up again. January also brought three new songs to life. One of them was “All the way” and we immediately felt that this was something special. The only problem was that it needed a choir – like a gospel choir – and we just had to find more voices to create that. We also added sound to the original website, yes the orchestra tuning and some of our songs mixed in and out of that. You might think that it’s a short half-minute loop, but it’s actually some eight minutes with small changes of the songs fading in and out.
TV & New York
Again SYN TV in Australia asked for lyric videos and we’re always so happy for the recognition we get so, of course, lyric videos “Unrefined” and “Poison” were sent there. We like the idea of letting local TV- or radio stations have exclusive access to our work before it goes public. It’s probably not a smart market strategy since everyone that hears or sees something instantly want access to it and won’t remember it later on - but we’re old school. It’s good to long for something and get it later; having everything instantly is just boring. One Yo made his, by now, annual trip to New York to have some fun and try to work on contacts there. It was, as always, a good time and memorable moments. Some of our business cards were planted and pictures were published on Facebook so that anyone checking us out there could go find the cards. (Yeah – like old school Pokémon go!)
Closing time and new stickers
By March the old Yoyo account was finally down and now the number of listeners started to grow again. We made an instrumental short piano version of “Unrefined” that we published on YouTube and Facebook, in order to get some variety to the stuff we publish there. We also published a jam session from the studio up north recorded in April 2014. New stickers with “Yoyo xno” printed on them arrived and we started to use them instantly in our contacts with radio stations all over the world. We still have a sticker picture idea that we want to realize but can’t find the time to do, so we contacted a photographer we know and she said she’d give it a try.
All the way
Moulding the new song “All the way” was also in process at this time. Another acoustic guitar got there and, after some hours practicing the old Oboe, one Yo put it in there too. We managed to gather some people to make the choir part in the song. We all had plastic bag omelets, which Ginny in Illinois taught us how to do, for lunch and listened to the song over and over getting in the mood. The recording session didn’t take much more than an hour and we rounded everything up with some coffee and photos. So, for the first time, we made a recording that is not just Yo and Yo playing and singing everything and there would be more of that this year.
EP or not
We decided to release our first EP, it seemed to be the only way to get “Unrefined” and “Poison” back on Spotify and now we felt we had another great new song to go with them. We started going through our back catalogue and started working on a song called “No direction” that we made during the first year of this project. Other songs that we thought suitable for this EP were “In my room” that we made after our California trip last year, and an old happy song called “Pet Farm (Happy Hog)” that was written before this project started, but never has been published. Actually the last mentioned song here was a request from our web guy “Screeny” and his buddy “JMK” that have been hopping around to it for years. It shouldn’t be to hard getting the songs all ready by the summer, but then a voucher dropped down. We’d get the first year for free if we published something as a contribution to the “Dreamhack Anthem Contest”. Had to take another lap in the back catalogue, found “The Gamer” and started to work on that one instead. EP would have to wait.
Rollercoaster
We couldn’t find time to write new songs during spring but planned to find time for that during the summer. Streaming went up and peaked with a lot of people in Malaysia and the Philippines listening to our music. We’re still not sure what triggered it but we keep working with promotion worldwide. We also started uploading short versions of our published work on Soundcloud to see if that might help spreading our work. A rapper, Johnny B, which wanted to do something together, contacted one Yo and we started working in the pre-studio down south. Having an overload of digital sounds finishing “The Gamer” it felt necessary to work with real instruments as far as possible on this hip hop track. “The Gamer” was sent back and forth between our studios getting polished here and there until it was all right to publish. We dug up some video material from downtown LA and Long Beach and some old gaming sequences that we had in store for the lyric video and out it was. It didn’t make it to the final but we didn’t expect that either, though digital it’s not your average drum and bass or electronica – we’re still being ourselves. The number of people streaming our music decreased just as sudden as they had appeared and we still don’t have a clue as to what caused this. On top of that all our releases disappeared from Deezer where we had seen an increase during spring. Got to keep on keeping on.
Summertime, cards, stickers and hip hop.
We started this summer by getting our business cards out in eastern Canada and northeast USA. Got one card out in Turkey and both cards and stickers in Sweden. One Yo performed all the music at a funeral, it’s something else and though this wasn’t the first time, it still grabs you and puts a whole different pressure on you. There were also some private party performances taking place during summer and guest appearances at other friend’s gigs. The collaboration with Johnny B continued with finishing his song “Givin’ It” and making a lyric video to go with it. Had a blast giving the old car new paint purple and copper to do some promo pictures in connection with this hip hop thing. We received one copy each of Sylvia Massy’s book “Recording Unhinged” that we hope will help in making our music sound even better. Towards the end of summer we finally had a camp in the studio up north. Lots of drumming going on, as usual, and doing weird stuff that can never be published. Leading up to that session one Yo had been visited by an internationally acknowledged producer that gave him some tips and tricks with regard to recording and mixing. We spent hours and hours mixing and remixing drum-tracks and songs with one microphone in the rear end of the studio picking up Low-Fi rumble to feed the compressors. We made new mixes of “Unrefined” and “Poison” and completed “In my room” and “Pet Farm”. “All the way” was left as it had been since we really couldn’t make it any better. We struggled with “No direction” but couldn’t get it right. Of course, we also had relaxed daytime hours, just hanging out enjoying summer. This session must have been the least productive we ever had and there’s no way we’ll make a new compilation with twelve songs this year, but we’re having fun.
Releases, radio and editing.
We let out the single “Givin’ it” with Johnny B straight away and published teaser and lyric video on YouTube in connection with the release to see if that would have a better impact – it didn’t. Due to the explicit lyric we didn’t send this song to very many radio stations – they would not play it anyway. Now, all our releases turned up at Deezer again but they’d been away for months and we can only hope people will find their way back. The new songs on the upcoming EP were sent to radio stations. They were well received by many of the stations that have played our tunes before. “All the way” and “Pet Farm” were their favorite picks and the first mentioned here was the song that finally gave us some airtime on the BBC. A local show but still we regard this as some kind of breakthrough. They followed it up a month later by playing “Down in my knees” from our Christmas single and we love it. We were delighted to hear from Arroe Collins again, now working on rBeatz.com, and had a good long talk with him about the songs on our EP. Business cards were planted in the Los Angeles area and the YouTube teasers for the new songs were made and posted here and there. The happy hog that we’re singing about in “Pet Farm” passed away which leaves us with just cats now. More business cards went out in Thailand and we got response from a fan there – incredible.
Wrapping it up, ease out – or not.
We felt content with what we had accomplished this year and were just going to do some more promotion of the new songs on the EP when another offer came our way. The one year free release of an EP and you’ve got about 48 hours to upload the songs. All right, forget relaxing and get back on it. We had been talking about the benefits of albums and EP’s in the interview with Arroe. How it makes you able to vary the style and work with a theme. We now dug up a bunch of songs that would let us do this on an EP. “Ground is clay”, “Man in clay”, “I’m doin’ it too”, “Muddy Waters”, “Great Reward” and “Lifetime” are the songs that will constitute the EP “DIRT” that will be out March 17, 2017. These are all very much Yoyo xno songs and very little main stream and some lyrics that will hopefully make you think or feel. We made adjustments like crazy in both pre-studios, added stuff, deleted stuff and uploaded everything in time. Then we realized we need to do lyric videos as well – crap! Well, we will see how that goes, all we can say this last day of 2016 is that it’s been a hectic end of this year and most of it is actually done. The last business card this year was put in New Zeeland. That sticker picture idea? No, didn’t happen, but we’ll do it one of these days. Let’s go 2017 – project 17!
