Kevin Bronson on November 12th, 2015

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L.A. fans might recognize Nico Yaryan as the touring drummer for Hanni El Khatib, his high school buddy. It was a gig that took Yaryan all over the world, and on a trip to Amsterdam he met a woman and fell in love. The push and pull of that relationship, and trying to keep the fire burning across continents, inspired the songs on his debut album “What a Tease” (due Feb. 26 via Partisan Records). It’s certainly not the first album inspired by long-distance relationships, but maybe the first written while working as a weed clipper in Northern California, a job he took to finance the occasional plane flight overseas. The teaser songs “Just Tell Me” and “Old Gloria” reveal Yaryan’s no-frills earnestness; they’re much more plainspoken pining than overwrought whining. “Just Tell Me,” especially, leaves you rooting for the guy with the Everyman voice to get the girl.

||| Stream: “Old Gloria” and “Just Tell Me”