»Portrait Of A Dog« is the second album from Japanese-born Canadian Jonah Yano. The first, »Souvenir«, was released in 2000 and featured a collection of charming songs that defied every trend. It sounded a bit like Toro y Moi, and especially like what he released with his band The Mattson 2. »Portrait Of A Dog« picks up on that vibe and the quest for a straightforward good song, but then takes it a giant step forward. The contours were suddenly sharpened. BADBADNOTGOOD, the band that Jonas Yano recorded the entire album with, were in no small part to blame for this. The grooves are spot on, the dabs of colour perfectly placed. Everything seems more dynamic and more of a piece. The fact that the music is a lot more jazz now certainly resonates, but only becomes really obvious on the final track, »The Ordinary Is Ordinary Because It Ordinarily Repeats«. If you want to draw comparisons, then that could perhaps be to Sam Prekop and his band The Sea And Cake or even to Geoff Farina from Karate. He names Adrianne Lenker from Big Thief and Lesley Feist as inspirations. And the truth, like so often, lies somewhere in between.
Portrait Of A Dog
