"Break Up (Vinyl LP)"

"Exclusive Rhino.co.uk pre-order offer!We have 10 Relator 7inch singles to give away, with one copy signed by both Pete & Scarlett! Anyone who pre-orders Break Up on vinyl or CD from Rhino.co.uk before the 7th September will be entered into the draw! Winners will be notified by the 14th September. A truly one-of-a-kind album, Break Up brings together critically acclaimed singer/songwriter Pete Yorn and the multi-talented Scarlett Johansson. In this deeply emotive yet hook-filled song cycle, Yorn and Johansson reenact the tempestuous course of a love affair on the rocks in captivating detail. The album contains eight original compositions by Yorn, ranging in tone from the lilting opener “Relator” to the disarming, retro/futuristic “I Don’t Know What to Do” to the climactic “Someday.” Completing the collection is a powerful interpretation of the art-rock classic “I Am the Cosmos” by the late Chris Bell, co-founder of the quintessential cult band Big Star. The album had its genesis in the aftermath of—you guessed it—a breakup. The time was 2006, and Yorn was in a state of acute emotional distress. As he prepared to go out on a headlining tour behind his third studio album, Nightcrawler, he found himself in the throes of a brutal bout of insomnia. After not being able to sleep for a week, he finally dozed off, only to wake with a start just minutes later. What had awakened him was a dream. “I sat up in bed, and the whole thing was in my head, fully formed,” Yorn says, sounding as if he still doesn’t quite believe it. “I suddenly felt like I really needed to make a record in the style of Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot. Not that it had to sound like that, but it had to be a guy-and-girl conceptual thing. So then I asked myself, ‘Who’s Brigitte Bardot today? It’s Scarlett Johansson.’” Revitalized by his concept and thrilled by the prospect of bringing it to life, Yorn gave Johansson a call. Intrigued by his out-of-the-blue invitation, she decided to go for it. ”Pete told me that he’d had a dream that we recorded an album together,” she recalls, “and with that momentum, he had written eight songs that he’d wanted to record pretty low-key. I’ve always loved Pete’s voice and have been friends with him for some time. It sounded like an interesting little adventure. He used the Serge and Brigitte recordings as reference for the ambiance he was trying to capture. He liked the idea of two people vocalizing their relationship through duets.” In a flash, Yorn had worked up a dedicated batch of songs and reworked others that had called out to him in the context of the concept. He then called upon his cousin, Max Goldblatt, a bright, talented guy nine years his junior. A “renaissance man,” in Yorn’s words, Goldblatt had become an invaluable part of the artist’s musical and personal life, doing everything from manning the merch table and shooting video footage during tours to acting as an insightful sounding board for song ideas. They had wanted to work on a project together, and this one, so close to home in an emotional sense, provided the perfect opportunity. Goldblatt then suggested they bring in Sunny Levine, an emerging artist and producer (you’ll want to seek out his 2005 debut album, Love Rhino), who was full of inventively offbeat sonic ideas. Levine comes by his considerable chops naturally—his father is producer Stewart Levine; his grandfather is Quincy Jones. In Levine’s garage studio, the three collaborators worked up the tracks around Yorn’s vocals and acoustic guitar, with Levine creating the beats and treating the sounds until they were exotic and sometimes otherworldly, but unfailingly accessible. They brought in guitarist Robert Francis (who’d been mentored on the slide by Ry Cooder), bassist Giuseppe Patane and violinist Amir Yaghmai for the particular flavors they could bring, and the tracks grew organically. Finally, they were ready f]]>"