The forthcoming compilation album Echoes / Anam Cara will be released on Lost Map on 12” vinyl and via digital platforms on November 1st, 2024. Bringing together songs from Blind Yeo’s two EPs to date, including their newly re-mixed and re-mastered 2023 debut EP Echoes (previously only available on limited-edition cassette), it’s the perfect introduction to a band whose wild and freewheeling sound continues to grow and grow.
“‘Anam cara’ means ‘soul friend’ in Gaelic,” says Blind Yeo singer, songwriter and guitarist Will Greenham. “The human face is the window to the soul. Your soul friend can know more about you than you know about yourself. These connections can last seconds or a lifetime. Sometimes you have to say goodbye to that moment that will never happen again. We captured the song live in a turbulent and emotive time and in true Blind Yeo spirit you will never hear the song this way again.”
Led by Will Greenham, Blind Yeo features a shifting cast of members which at present includes Henry Greenham, Sam Pert, Anoushka Helm, Jake Sheridan, Phil Self, Phyllida Bluemel and Dan Gilbert. The project began in the quiet and solitude of lockdown, before coming alive in a creatively explosive residency at the newly opened Cornish Bank in 2022 – a vibrant not-for-profit community arts space in the centre of Falmouth which has become the heart of a thriving underground Cornish scene of which Blind Yeo are very much a part. The band has since grown into a psychedelic carnival of sound best experienced live, as their memorable sets at festivals including Lost Map’s Christmas Humbug in Edinburgh and Great Estate and Tropical Pressure in Cornwall have proved.
Blind Yeo self-released their debut EP Echoes in April 2023, with tracks receiving plays from NTS, Soho Radio and BBC Introducing. It was followed in May 2024 by their Lost Map debut single ‘Otherside’ – a six-and-a-half-minute blur of motorik beats, rave synths and jagged electric guitar runs which received support from BBC 6 Music’s New Music Fix. Blind Yeo’s second EP Anam Cara was recorded last summer in guitarist & sound technician Dan Gilbert's cob house, off-grid, solar powered studio hidden in woodland just off the north coast of Cornwall. Instead of putting it out as a purely standalone release, they’ve decided to pair it up with Echoes to create a revealing document of the band’s first two years together, and the thrilling journey of discovery they’ve been on to date – a journey that shows no time of stopping anytime soon.
“We started with live sessions last summer,” says Sheridan of Anam Cara, “two guitars, bass, drums and synth, to create and capture a raw and improvised energy. Then we finessed the tracks over the winter months, adding synths and strings. We produced everything collaboratively, often writing parts as we went.”
“Once an idea for a song’s been brought to the band there’s lots of jamming and improvisation and we all write our own parts,” adds synth player Henry Greenham. “It means the songs mean something personal to all of us – and these meanings and interpretations all joining and moving and flowing together creates our unique sound. It feels very powerful to connect with other humans through music like this.”
