Yr Knives is a new project from Chicago-based composer and arranger Paul Karner along with Andrew Trim (Hanami and Retroflector), Brian J. Sulpizio (Health&Beauty), Douglas McCombs (Tortoise, Eleventh Dream Day) and Quin Kirchner. The writing for the forthcoming album Begin Yr Singing (out October 30, 2026 via Western Vinyl) began in 2022 with Karner, Trim and Sulpizio across various sessions before sharing the music with McCombs and Kirchner who helped to complete the pieces. Lead single “Fear&Trimbling” utilizes single guitar lines to trace feelings of anxiety while a more discordant line expresses the discordant, nervous energy as the rhythm somehow both keeps an even beat but sounds like it starts and stops to accent a state of mind that is a little scattered and trying to make sense of internal psychological turmoil as exacerbated by external emotional stimuli. The song pairs harried intensity with a will to unraveling or channeling off that mood into paradoxically labyrinthine structure and distorted minimalism. It sounds both frantic and cathartic like a modern embodiment of the more avant work of the likes of free jazz rebels Sonny Sharrock and Albert Ayler. Watch the retro-psychedelic music video for “Fear&Trimbling” on YouTube and follow Yr Knives at the links provided.
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