Don’t Call It A Revival Revival: Math-Punks “Yes Yes A Thousand Times Yes” Are Back To Rock Your World
Don’t Call It A Revival Revival: Math-Punks “Yes Yes A Thousand Times Yes” Are Back To Rock Your World
"...a makeup of mathy riffs, breakneck drumming, a variety of different vocal approaches, and tasteful melodies. [..] YY1KXY take what many believe to be a stale genre and add their own, distinguishing twist to it." - The Alternative
“A song that truly blossoms, Yes Yes A Thousand Times Yes’ “Numb Sum” feels like a five-act play, taking listeners from a comfortable bounce at the start to a jumble of intricate riffs and a groove from the drums that’s both tight and jumpy, busy in the best way.” - The Alternative
FFO: I Kill Giants; Glocca Morra; Perspective, A Lovely Hand To Hold
Genres: Emo, Math-rock, Punk
After releasing their phenomenal debut LP via Broken World Media in 2016, Yes Yes A Thousand Times Yes collapsed alongside the sound of the emo revival. Now, the band is back with a vengeance and their sophomore album, Supertinyinfinitedans, promises to inject a powerful shot of adrenaline straight to the heart of the genre.
With Supertinyinfinitedans, the band provides an unexpected but much-needed voice of encouragement – perhaps even joy. Yes Yes A Thousand Times Yes is stretching the emo label to its limit, shattering expectations, and challenging the core assumptions of a genre that more often gets off on commoditizing its sadness.
Back after a six-year hiatus, Yes Yes A Thousand Times Yes unveil Supertinyinfinitedans, available everywhere now via Really Rad Records.
photo by Ross Ribblett (@rossribblett on Instagram)
About Yes Yes A Thousand Times Yes
Yes Yes A Thousand Times Yes (or YY1KXY for the impatient) has certainly weathered the storm in the 7 years since releasing their debut LP through Broken World Media. From multiple lineup changes, gear setbacks and financial struggles, to vocalist/songwriter Dan Hagendorf’s (they/them) health crises exacerbated by America’s failing healthcare system, the band has faced a barrage of challenges. And if that wasn't enough, the pandemic threw another wrench in the works, delaying their newest release by a whopping four years from its original 2019 release date.
With that context, you might expect that the album is a product of its circumstances, full of the same frustration, despair, and anticapitalist rage that must have encapsulated its creation. And while those elements are certainly present, YY1KXY taps into something much deeper, something counterintuitive: hope. In spite of all evidence to the contrary, YY1KXY wants you to know that optimism is not only possible, but the ultimate act of rebellion against a system designed to make you give up before you even start.
Supertinyinfinitedans is out now via Really Rad Records.
About The Album
Supertinyinfinitedans is a document. Better yet, it’s a time capsule. Most of Yes Yes a Thousand Times Yes’ sophomore LP has existed, in some form or another, since 2014. In that way, it’s almost a time machine, a look back into songwriter Dan Hagendorf’s life and mindset nearly a decade ago. At that time, cuts like the anti-social media ender “The Movies” and eat-the-rich anthems “Dead Eyes, Clapping in Unison” and “Numb Sum” might’ve sounded hyperbolic; in 2023, they seem prophetic. Hagendorf says their goal on Supertinyinfinitedans is to “vindicate its listeners in saying you are justified in feeling angry and desperate, but also challenge them in saying hope is not mutually exclusive.”
Sonically, these songs do indeed have their roots in the emo boom of the early 2010s: the opening “Two Birds, One’s Stoned” kicks the LP off with noodling goodness, “Society Can Help Shape Our Genes” has bouncing math riffs buried under its pop rock structure, and the six-minute “Numb Sum” begins with a math emo lick before disintegrating into a prog rock banger. As the second half of “Numb Sum” suggests, though, like with the record’s lyrical arc, its musical arc is one that stretches beyond its time-and-place origins. “Slush Fund” sheds its indie rock skin midway through to reveal a Dischord-inflected post-hardcore soul trapped inside, and each verse of “Sensual Sports” might as well be borrowed from a different song—hell, maybe even a different band—but they all come together to make a great track equally as catchy as it is crunchy.
A number of songs on Supertinyinfinitedans (“Spellcasting,” “Synchronize Yr Watches,” “Buzzing Still // Cousin House”) deal with nostalgia, the feeling that maybe there was something special that we lost along the way as we’ve grown, that there’s no way to get that thing back. Maybe, to a certain degree, that’s true—maybe there is a door that’s closed and can’t be opened again, maybe the ship’s sailed long ago. But for 45 minutes, Yes Yes a Thousand Times Yes reminds us that, whatever evil the government might be up to, or corporations, or the internet, “you can still choose to hope.” And if you can hope, then you can believe, and if you can believe, you can make it. Supertinyinfinitedans is proof.
Vocalist/songwriter Dan Hagendorf on the album:
Note: Dan's pronouns are they/them
"Supertinyinfinitedans is a collection of songs about processing the communal cognitive dissonance between the traditional, innately human imperative to forge ahead and progress and trying to do that in a society and environment that are rapidly caving in on themselves. It describes the primally unsettling realization that it’s not safe to swim in a random body of water anymore (Slush Fund); that moment you realize the erosion of privacy and significance from social media is already way past where you thought it would be by now (The Movies); the confusion you feel watching the inverse relationship between body-decay and experience/wisdom-accumulation play out (Synchronize Yr Watches). There are some unabashed appeals to nostalgia (Buzzing Still // Cousin House)—things you didn’t imagine you’d end up romanticizing—and asks if it’s not a justifiable global imperative at this point to eat the rich and redistribute their wealth, like yesterday (Dead Eyes, Clapping In Unison).
Battling with mental health and reckoning with the fact that you are ultimately in control of your headspace and how you respond to external stimuli serve as the connecting threads throughout the album. The record attempts to vindicate its listeners in saying you are justified in feeling angry and desperate, but also challenges them in saying hope is not mutually exclusive.
We are living through a period of hyperbolic technological change and a myriad of compound stressors, the lag between our processing power and reality playing out is increasingly on display. It can be fun and cathartic to explore this space though, it’s radically freeing to let go of any kind of resentment towards our inherited shit situation and recognize you can still choose to hope."
Upcoming Dates:
7/15 - Philadelphia, PA @ The Pottery Gym
7/16 - Queens, NY @ Sundown Bar
7/17 - New Haven, CT @ Cafe Nine
7/18 - Boston, MA @ Deep Cuts
7/19 - Albany, NY @ No Fun
7/20 - Niagara Falls, NY @ Rapids Theatre
7/21 - Akron, OH @ It’s A Kling Thing
7/22 - Columbus, OH @ Half Baked
Follow Yes Yes A Thousand Times Yes:
Twitter - www.twitter.com/yy1kxy
Tiktok - www.tiktok.com/@yy1kxy
Website - www.yy1kxy.com
