yllwshrk release their debut single ‘And Let Them Glow’ on EOA Recordings.

Available on Bandcamp and other stream / download providers, it comes from debut album ‘I Am Aladdin’, due out on the same label on October 16th.

‘And Let Them Glow’ is described as “a very personal song” for composer and guitarist Ian Anderson, the main force behind yllwshrk, and who cites the likes of Mahler and Prokofiev as big influences as well the likes of Björk and Radiohead.

“The song is about my great aunt, the closest person I had to a grandparent, and my experience of watching her slowly fade to a pale shadow of her former self due to Alzheimer’s disease,” says Anderson of the single.

“Once so vibrant and loving, she gradually became miserable, confused and paranoid, hallucinating due to the cocktail of drugs she was given to stay alive. Is this kindness? Is this what we really want for our loved ones? Is that what I would want for myself?”

‘And Let Them Glow’ features Scottish singer-songwriter Hannah Read, who guests on together with the Maxwell String Quartet, winners of the 2017 Trondheim International Chamber Music Competition.

The band – vocalist Sam West, Matt Isaac on lead guitars, Ian Anderson contributing guitars/ and string arrangements, Dave Brown on bass and synths, percussionist Feargus Brennan, and David Donaldson’s electronics/audio manipulation – fuse alt-rock and contemporary classical music, working with a number of collaborators.

Scored for a line-up of acoustic guitar, string quartet, and male and female voices, album ‘I Am Aladdin’ also features appearances by the London Contemporary Orchestra, Berlin electronic duo Mouse on Mars’ Andi Toma, saxophone virtuoso Nick Roth, young Scottish jazz pianist Fergus McCreadie, and contemporary classical composer Linda Buckley.

The core members of yllwshrk have variously appeared on albums such as Radiohead’s ‘A Moon Shaped Pool’, Frank Ocean’s ‘Blonde’, Actress’ ‘LAGEOS’, Thom Yorke’s ‘Anima’, and Foals’ ‘Holy Fire’ as members of the London Contemporary Orchestra (LCO).

They have also performed live with artists such as Little Simz, Goldfrapp, Ry X, Eric Clapton, Deltron 3030, and Elbow, as well as regularly giving classical chamber music recitals across the UK & Europe and performing and recording with many of the UK’s leading orchestras.

The band take their name from ‘The Yellow Shark’, Frank Zappa’s foray into contemporary classical music alongside Ensemble Modern, and their wide range of musical influences are, they say, reflected in the album’s title: ‘I Am Aladdin’ references BlackRock Inc.’s Aladdin programme, which appears in Adam Curtis’ film HyperNormalisation as an example of how modern technocrats attempt to manage the chaos and complications of the real world.

The band explore this unease with much of the modern world throughout ‘I Am Aladdin’, the tone and subject of the songs taking inspiration, we’re told, from Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror and “Frankie Boyle’s old Guardian columns”.

More at www.yllwshrk.com