Yazan

Yazan is a born and bred New Yorker, raised on salty East River breezes and pizza slices, video game arcades and street art everywhere. His sound is as colorful and soulful as the city that reared him: he is part urban storyteller, part guitar wizard, and all psychedelic explorer of the universal spirit.

On his debut album Your Crooked Part (Shoulder Tap Records, SHT010), accompanied by only his 1938 Gibson archtop guitar, Yazan delivers ten original blues, recorded live to tape in a one room house located in the woods outside of Athens, GA. The stripped down recording leaves plenty of room for his trademark howl, with slide guitar flourishes and steady foot stomps playfully weaving around his plaintive cries. Inspired by the percussive, hypnotic blues of North Mississippi Hill Country greats like RL Burnside and Junior Kimbrough, and the self-confident swagger of Delta Blues legends Robert Johnson and Charley Patton, Yazan blends his downtown sound with the root of rock n’ roll, electrifying listeners without a socket in sight.

For his latest release Undress My Mind (Shoulder Tap Records, SHT013), Yazan returned to Athens to once again work with engineer/producer Will Manning, recording a batch of brand new songs in the same naked style as his previous effort. This time, Yazan breaks out of the blues idiom and performs ten melodic and visceral gems, exploring the depths of his mind, his heart, and his spirit. Between moments of poignant lyricism (the Dylanesque “I Wanted More of You”), and meditative explorations into the nature of his true self (the improvisational finale “I Undress My Mind”), Yazan explores feelings of alienation, love, and loss, ultimately finding redemption in his own voice (the climactic “Sing With Me”).