The Yagas – Midnight Minuet
Alt rock band The Yagas, fronted by Oscar and Emmy-nominated actress Vera Farmiga, has officially announced the details for their debut full-length album, Midnight Minuet, out independently Friday, April 25th.
Alongside the album news, The Yagas – also featuring Renn Hawkey of Deadsy (keys), Jason Bowman (drums), Mark Visconti (guitar) and Mike Davis (bass) – have released their new single “Life Of A Widow,” an explosive yet luminous portrait of anticipatory grief, sparked from an oddly hypnotic beat constructed by Hawkey after awaking from spinal surgery.
“‘Life Of A Widow’ is a song of searing lament. It’s a song of embodying that ol’ prodigious saying, ‘Why has thou forsaken me?’,” shares Farmiga. “The song is aching to feel the presence of a deceased loved one. It’s a soul’s journey of yearning, pleading to crack the unbearable silence of solitude, that Vantablack void, just to hear your love’s voice once again, to feel your love’s touch again. The protagonist in our song wanders through her misery, she navigates through mad midnight moments of throbbing despair. She begs to feel less alone. She demands to feel the presence of her lost love. And she won’t stop wailing until he’s there. It’s about taking those sudden, violent jabs of red-hot grief, feeling pummeled and clobbered by desperation and crying out to the dearly departed for help and reconnection.”
“Producing Midnight Minuet was very cathartic for me,” adds Hawkey. “I felt the need to prove to myself that I could make great music outside of Deadsy, which, for the past 25 years, had been my only writing/recording partnership. This was a very different creative experience for me. I often felt in Deadsy like I was playing in someone else’s playground – I knew the rules, I mastered the slide and the monkey bars, but I felt like a visitor. Midnight Minuet just felt different. The Yagas built a new playground together, made up of our respective life experiences with equal ownership. We are the sum of our parts. When this kind of synergy exists, you grab it, nurture it, and give it a life.”
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