Last week, Yannai Goldberg of KRUMPLE KRINK dazzled us with his sensational psych-pop single, Fear Of Death. Now, he’s given us an enticing peek into his creative process, and what we can look forward to from his forthcoming self-titled EP.
Perth artist, Yannai Goldberg has been fully immersed in a transformative creative journey over the last couple of years. Having just released a debut single under his new moniker, KRUMPLE KRINK, it’s only the beginning of a very exciting road ahead for the 21-year-old musician.
His latest offering, Fear Of Death is a vibrant, uplifting multi-genre masterpiece. Self-produced in the confines of his home studio, Yannai explores a diverse range of sounds; deftly fusing elements of pop, alt-rock and psychedelic music. This illuminating hit is the first of many, as he gears up to launch his forthcoming self-titled EP.
We caught up with Yannai to discuss the birth of KRUMPLE KRINK, the making of his latest tune, creative influences, and his ever-growing love for psychedelic music.
HAPPY: How’s your day been so far?
YANNAI: I had a nice little sleep-in and a bunch of corn fritters for breakfast. So far so good!
HAPPY: Can you talk us through the meaning behind your debut track, Fear of Death?
YANNAI: I won’t go too in-depth to it, because I think the beauty of music comes from people’s personal meanings that they attach to the song. While I’m writing the song, that meaning belongs to me, but as soon as it lands on someone else’s ears, they own the song and get to create their own meaning from it. To me, the song is almost embedded in a question mark, questioning if motivation is something intrinsic to us, or if it is simply a symptom of fear that if we don’t accomplish what we set out to do right now, we may never have the chance.
HAPPY: I read that the song embodies a viewpoint you don’t necessarily hold anymore…
YANNAI: I think the mindset of the song is very impatient. It wants everything to happen now, and wants to not stop pushing forward in life until it reaches its goals, even if that means blocking off everything else in the world. On paper, this doesn’t sound too bad, and when I wrote this song, this way of thinking was extremely attractive to me. And in truth, it did push me to get a lot of music work done!
What I’d failed to consider was that the benchmarks we set ourselves often move forward alongside us. By the time we reach our goals, if we are purely goal-orientated, we will have come up with another goal to accomplish before even reaching the first. So with that head down, work hard approach, we never have time to breathe and enjoy life.
HAPPY: You recorded the track at home, what does your home studio setup look like?
YANNAI: I turned one of the rooms in my house into a studio, I took the doors off a wardrobe and turned it into a vocal booth. I also keep an amp and my pedals there, guitars and bass of course, as well as a synth, a drum machine and a couple other weird sound devices. Besides that, it’s just nerdy audio equipment I use for recording my music. My home studio is a constant work in progress, so the way it looks now is very different to how it will look in a years time. I’ll do a tour of it at some point that I’ll post to social media. But to me, more interesting to how it looks is how it sounds, and I’ll be sure to answer that question thoroughly in the next few years as I continue to record and release music.
HAPPY: You posted a visualiser on Instagram with laser-generated moving images, where did the vision for that come from?
YANNAI: That’s a little teaser for an aspect of the visuals in an upcoming music video for the next song I release. I worked with an amazing lighting technician from Perth: Seton Douglas-Smith from Orion Audio Visual. It was never meant to be used for this song, but we had lots of leftover footage from the video shoot and I thought I’d incorporate some of that into this song! Keep an eye out for that video, its super cool. No bias involved!
HAPPY: Which artist sparked your love for psychedelic music?
YANNAI: To answer the question, probably Tame Impala. I also regard Alt-J and Glass Animals’ music as quite psychedelic sounding and also breathtaking. More than any artist/band though, it was the concept of psychedelic music that intrigued me. I used to play solo guitar in a percussive style, so songs to me were about making the whole song come from the guitar, in an impressive way, and then singing on top of that. On the contrary, my idea of psychedelic music is having all the elements of the song melt into each other, creating one big body of sound that moves as a whole. Within that big sound, there are several smaller sounds, each with their own distinct movement that characterises them, but all fitting harmoniously into the bigger sound that they all create together.
This idea was challenging for me to do initially. I would write a guitar part that I really liked and wanted it to shine through in the song, but would have to almost sacrifice it in a way and let it sit further back in the song, to a point where no one would ever fully notice and appreciate it. However, I’ve realised that when playing alongside everything else in a more subtle and gentle way, it sounds almost more beautiful and intricate than when alone in its full glory, and plays a more vital role in the texture of the song.
That brings me back to the question again, if I can answer it in a slightly different way. The thing that made me fall in love with psychedelic music is the lesson it has taught me in life. Sometimes we all need to step back a little bit and allow others to shine. That may feel at times that we’re limiting our own value that we can give to the world, but I think it makes us even more beautiful, and allows us to fit into a bigger picture that is so much more grand and amazing than we can ever be alone.
HAPPY: Thanks so much for chatting!
YANNAI: Thank you for your questions!
Fear Of Death is out now on all platforms. Listen to the new single here.
Interviewed by Lochie Schuster.