Yeudan Hotch: “Haven’t Talked For Years” – so much more than the sum of its parts
Yeudan Hotch Northern California Folk musician who a few months back released the video single, “Haven’t Talked For Years”. Like the majority of roots music artists who back up their vocals with the simple accompaniment of an acoustic guitar, Yeudan focuses a large part of his artistic expression via his lyrics. It’s not often that music comes along which is so resolutely more significant than the relatively underwhelming sum of its parts. It’s hard to describe the actual sounds of the without it sounding like the kind of music one would hear emanating from some godforsaken coffee shop, with the track being touted as their ‘hot new pick.’
Yes, Yeudan Hotch’s music is extremely minimalist, totally acoustic folk, with melodic vocals. Yes, the lyrics are somewhat poetic and descriptive, and yet cryptic enough in terms of revealing the actual meaning at points. “Haven’t Talked For Years” narrates the story of two friends from their school days onward and the evolution toward their individual destinies.
And yes, some people might call this ‘hipster music,’ whatever that means. So whilst those three things might sound rather like a recipe for a clichéd musical disaster, “Haven’t Talked For Years” manages to shrug off any trepidation one might feel when going into it, and it ultimately comes together as being so, so, so much more than the sum of its parts that one would be forgiven for wondering if they had fallen foul of some sort of musical trickery.
The incredibly simple chord progression and lovely pristine vocals delivering the oblique, sometimes melancholic one-liners, feels enchanted, like it’s been given some unfair advantage against other music by just having this innate sort of depth, an inherent sense of meaning, which ultimately so much other folk music lack so pitifully. By the time you reach the closing bars, on your first listen, you’d have to be pretty stoic to not be at least a little more affected than you normally are by this type of music.
As Yeudan Hotch sings: “Part of me is angry you live this way / Like you’re avoiding stormy weather, man I know you could do better / We both know the world is sitting there to take / But who am I to point the way / Surrounded by my debt and disarray / Yeah we’ve sat and had some beers, but we haven’t talked for years..,” there is something so poignant in the man’s delivery, so profound in his poetry, that this reviewer couldn’t help but be utterly taken in from his first listen to his fifteenth…straight in a row.
