Halloween weekend might be behind us, but there is no reason we can’t keep the party going. The Sinclair has the right idea: The Cambridge rock club is hosting Canadian synth-pop group Yukon Blonde on their supporting tour with Rural Alberta Advantage on Thursday (November 2).
Yukon Blonde’s last offering was “Crazy/Emotional Blackmail,” a pair of singles that arrived late this summer. The two tracks were written during a period of transition for the band following the release of their acclaimed 2015 full-length On Blonde. Frontman Jeff Innes had relocated to Madrid after their European tour and the other four members were traveling back and forth to pen new material with him.
The transient circumstances in which they were written lend the tracks a more light-hearted, soaring feel than the band’s previous work. “Crazy” is a bouncy synth number about an ill-advised romance, and “Emotional Blackmail” grabs the listener with an infectious pop lead and vocals channeling the croons of Phoenix’s Thomas Mars.
“The idea for [“Crazy”] came about just before a show in Munich at the end of the tour,” Innes told Noisey over the summer. “I was just outside of the club and I could hear the rest of the band sound checking one of our songs. I had the chords mixed up in my mind so it sounded like a completely different tune. As I was humming this melody outside, I was simultaneously trying to think of what to say to defend my slightly erratic behaviour to a girl I had met in Spain. And so as I was writing to her, I ended up writing the lyrics to the song.”
Thursday night’s Sinclair date is the first stop on the U.S. leg of Yukon Blonde’s tour with their fellow Canadians in Rural Alberta Advantage. Check out the full list of tour dates, along with the visual for “Crazy” below, after the Spotify jump.
Yukon Blonde 2017 Live Dates:
November 02: Cambridge, MA – Sinclair *
November 03: Brooklyn, NY – Rough Trade *
November 04: New York, NY – Bowery Ballroom *
November 06: Washington, DC – Rock n Roll Hotel *
November 07: Asheville, NC – Mothlight *
November 08: Atlanta, GA – The Earl *
November 10: Nashville, TN – The High Watt *
November 11: Memphis, TN – Hi Tone *
November 12: Dallas, TX – Dada *
November 13: Austin, TX – Barracuda *
November 16: Phoenix, AZ – Valley Bar *
November 17: Los Angeles, CA – Troubadour *
November 18: San Francisco, CA – Great American Hall *
November 20: Portland, OR – Hawthorne Theatre *
November 21: Seattle, WA – Neumos *
November 24: Vancouver, BC – Commodore *
November 25: Kelowna, BC – Kelowna Community Theatre *
November 27: Red Deer, AB – Red Deer Memorial Centre *
November 30: Edmonton, AB – Union Hall *
December 01: Saskatoon, SK – O’Brians *
December 02: Winnipeg, MB – Pyramid *
December 03: Minneapolis, MN – First Ave *
December 06: Toronto, ON – Danforth Music Hall *
*with Rural Alberta Advantage