Björn Yttling, founding member of Peter Bjorn and John, has shared a new single from his jazz project Yttling Jazz. On “Distant Star,” he’s teamed up with Little Dragon’s Yukimi for a rumbling lounge-jazz cut built around the singer‘s delightful vocals and an interplay of muffled, pulsing drums and strong piano chords.
“This song came out of a track we recorded for the Illegal Hit album,” Yttling shared, referring to last year’s debut for YEAR0001. “It mainly had toms and tap shoes (!) but no real melody. The idea was to have a great singer and make a ‘Gene Krupa plays Swedish indie’ kind of tune. I worked on the melody meanwhile trying to come up with a singer that would fit the vibe. Once I got the idea to bring in Yukimi it all happened very fast. We planned the whole thing and wrote the lyrics over the phone. And…I knew that she was good, but I didn’t know she was this good. The bass clarinet by Nils Berg is an awesome feature and we topped it off with some beautiful growling trumpet by Tobias Wiklund.”
Check out the video, directed by Henry Moore Selder, below.
