For decades the bright lights of New York have drawn artists to its storied city streets — those seeking their tribe, those looking to solidify their identity, and those hungry for inspiration and fresh encounters, all there for the taking on this new, broadened horizon. And now 26-year-old Ryan Kaiser has joined those ranks, moving from Nashville to Brooklyn, at the tail-end of 2022. Except, unlike so many who have come before him, Kaiser’s already made a name for himself creating daydreamy, sun-blasted, Polaroid-pop as Yot Club.
With Yot Club’s second full-length, Rufus, Kaiser is expanding his sonic palette and challenging his own established modes of music making by letting collaborators in. The record includes co-writes with the likes of Tommy English (Carly Rae Jepsen, Kacey Musgraves), and singers Charli Adams and Harrison Lipton, with Patrick Wimberly (Lil Yachty, Joji, Blood Orange, MGMT ) on mixing duties, and the result is a collection of songs that sounds bolder and brighter. From the shimmering surf-pop of opener “Stuntman,” to the minor chord angst and quiet-loud-quiet pulse of “New Day,” to The Strokesian swoon of album closer “Lazy Eyes,” Kaiser lo-fi hooks have a new cinematic scope.
But let’s rewind to 2019 when his music first captured the ears and imagination of listeners thanks to the song “YKWIM?” off his Bipolar ep, one of three EPs he released that year alone. Newly graduated and still living in his college town of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, it was a pivotal year for Kaiser. Seemingly out of nowhere the streams on “YKWIM?” started climbing: 500k streams a day soon ballooning to a million. Unbeknownst to Kaiser, his song — which is now 2x RIAA Platinum — had become a go-to sad song for nostalgia-centric TikToks. The virality didn’t stem from a dance craze. It was about a vibe.
The knock-on effect was every major label came calling, but for Kaiser, signing his music away for 25 years in exchange for an non-recoupable advance was a hard no. Ultimately, Kaiser signed with Amuse, a distro company-turned-label, where he retained ownership of his masters and gained their full support for his vision. Kaiser followed 2020’s Nature Machine EP with 2022’s Santolina EP, and then, in 2023, he released his debut album off the grid and the EP amateur observer. Not to mention a ton of loosies including “LAUREN” with spill tab, and “Safe House” with Jordana, releases which underscore his newfound explorations in collaboration. Nostalgia is an oft-used descriptor too, but it’s one that Kaiser’s unafraid to lean into — “I don’t like anything that sounds like it was made now,” he notes — with his own song titled, “Nostalgia,” ringing out like the perfect soundtrack to a movie montage directed by John Hughes (with just a pinch of The Postal Service). And then there’s “Drowning,” written with Charli Adams, where Kincaid’s razored guitars recall Bloc Party. With production credits including MGMT, Solange, and Lil Yachty’s latest LP, Patrick Wimberly mixing brings a different dimension to Yot Club’s sound.
There’s an economy to Kaiser’s songwriting, a feel-it, sing-it straightforwardness that cuts to the meat of the matter, with his titles often providing the jumping off point, like lead single “Pixel.” With its ticking urgency and cascading guitar line, it was written and recorded in two days with producer Tommy English, and features Kaiser on live, looped drums, with additional slide guitar. “That song’s about getting caught up in your own life and technology in relation to self-importance and how you see yourself,” offers Kaiser. “It’s never been harder to appreciate your own circumstances than it is today because you can play the comparison game. It’s a complicated dynamic: the people whose lives look the best can often suck, ’cos why else would they go to such efforts to make it look like their lives are great!”
Then there’s “Human Nature,” written with artist Harrison Lipton, who also plays in the band MICHELLE and happens to live down the street. Written and recorded at Lipton’s parents’ 100+ year-old Connecticut house, Kaiser describes it as a driving-down-the-Pacific-Coast-Highway kind of tune. But those sunny sonics belie the melancholic inevitability of so many splits: the lover you spent every day with can eventually turn into someone you don’t recognize at all. “This album is not meant to serve as an eloquent story where there’s characters and side characters and betrayal and heartbreak,” he says. “It’s just 13 separate episodes that restart and don’t necessarily match each other, but I wanted to give it a character to wrap it all together.” Rufus is not exactly Ryan Kaiser, but these snapshots capture the essence of his experiences: a bad relationship and fresh realizations; leaving it all behind to try and find footing in a shiny new city that maybe isn’t exactly the imagined, mythologized creative utopia. It continues Kaiser’s coming of age — looking back, picking it all apart, trying to work it all out, and constantly pushing forward.