Stream: YIP YOPS, ‘Sinner’

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YIP YOPS

Since they last released music in May 2018, Coachella Valley-bred YIP YOPS have shrunk in numbers. Two members of the band stepped aside to focus on their education, leaving singer/multi-instrumentalist/wild man Ison Van Winkle and drummer Ross Murakami to carry on as a duo.

Like Van Winkle’s spasmodic stage moves, YIP YOPS’ music doesn’t stand still long to be confined to a genre. The singles they released in 2017 and ’18 could be described as dance-pop or synth-rock or art-punk; all are infused with the youthful abandon you’d expect from a band that played an early slot at Coachella (the festival) in 2017 when three-quarters of them were still teenagers.

Still just 20 and 23 years old, respectively, Van Winkle and Murakami today return with the new single “Sinner.” It swoops in on a tsunami of sleek and bubbling synths, with Van Winkle wondering in broad terms about his dark side. “The song is about me in the same way it’s about everyone,” he says. “We are all sinners from time to time and that’s OK. The balance between morality and sin is what makes us who we are.”

||| Stream: “Sinner”

||| Live: YIP YOPS perform at the Satellite on Sept. 23 as part of Talk Time’s residency.

||| Previously: “She”