Sad news in the world of intelligently enjoyable indie pop came our way Friday—longtime favorite band, Yellow Ostrich, officially called it quits after a little over four years and roughly 250 live shows.
We’ve been fans for most of that time—you can read this past March’s interview we conducted with frontman, Alex Schaaf (above), to learn more about the band and listen to excerpts from 2014’s Cosmos—so we’re obviously sad to see them go.
But we’re also excited at what’s to come. As with other outwardly negative events in everyone’s lives, these kind of things tend to push some of us toward choices or situations into which we may not have otherwise ventured.
And it seems like that may be the case with Schaaf’s new musical venture, Human Heat, which, for now, exists as a bedroom studio project for Schaaf, who plans to begin work on building it into a full-fledged band with live shows to come. So far, though, the project shows promise and has us excited to hear more, taking some of Yellow Ostrich’s distinct sound at pushing it out of its comfort zone, relying a little more on electronics and bringing in some nice guest vocals from T. Lieberson + Tei Shi.
Listen to Human Heat’s debut EP below and buy it for $4 on bandcamp.
If you’re in New York City December 8, you can catch Yellow Ostrich’s final performance at Glasslands.
