Yves Tumor's disruptive pop-cultural synthesis

The latest Yves Tumor album begins with a scream and ends with a call to lock eyes. A project with the koan-like title Praise A Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds) might seem like it's obscuring or even deliberately thumbing its nose at meaning, but the carnal bookending of a scream and a gaze suggests otherwise. It is a deranged beckoning into a free space — not frightening, but urgent still. Romantic, corporeal, gothy. A form of desire that's more chaotic and undefined; what social media has smoothed away our collective tolerance for.

This is typical of Yves Tumor, a sensitive Tennessean glam-punk with a penchant for noise andis the fifth Yves record and despite the avant-garde packaging, like the music videos for "God Is A Circle" and "Heaven Surrounds Us Like A Hood" which connect Hype Williams and Italian cinema within a surrealist continuum, the vibes gesture at a more conventional ethic. "I like to go on hikes and I like swimming," Yves said in a recent conversation with the multidisciplinary artist Kembra Pfahler. As with David Bowie, whom Yves is often compared to, or even Sun Ra, the avatar is a mirror to a more transcendent premise, reflecting our own humanity back at us.