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Newcastle Herald
Newcastle Herald
National
Josh Leeson

Yev Kassem in the daily grind for songwriting gold

LETTING IT FLOAT: Long Nite is the first taste off Yev Kassem's forthcoming second album Bright Death.

NICK Cave famously revealed the secret to his success was treating songwriting like a nine to five job. You have to be there to catch the inspiration.

Newcastle's Noah Church holds a similar view. Since January 1 the dave the band frontman and Yev Kassem solo artist has written more than 100 tracks as part of his aim to write a song every day.

The highlights of those daily iPhone recordings have been released in his bi-monthly Bandcamp offerings called The Brioche Breeze.

"One of the things I wanted to do was to make it very brain to page," Church said. "Because I'm trying to do it every day and I find it hard sometimes to squeeze it in, so I don't have time to think a lot and pour over the lyrics.

"I've realised over time it's become almost a journalling sort of process, where I've found myself writing without music throughout the day so when I go to write the song I have something."

Church also released new music this week in a more conventional way. Long Nite, dropped on Tuesday, and is the first single from Yev Kassem's second album Bright Death, due for release later this year.

The song was recorded 18 months ago and sees Church drifting away from the indie rock and folk sound he's been known for on dave the band's album Slob Stories and Yev Kassem's 2020 debut Joy Is A House Made Out Of Tears.

Taking a nod from his younger brother Romy, aka e4444e, Church incorporated samplers and drum machines into Long Nite.

Long Nite - Yev Kassem

"The last two years we've been making a lot of music together and he [e4444e] has definitely got me into sampling and using different machines to make music," Church said.

"After I did the last Yev album I was trying to find a new way of doing things that felt exciting to me."

Long Nite also features the backing vocals of e4444e, Church's partner Priscilla Payne and friend Dougal McMullen. All four feature in Long Nite's simplistic video where they're battling it out on Mario Kart on Nintendo 64.

Church has also self-recorded a second album with dave the band, but he said the raucous three-piece was on the backburner until after Bright Death was released.

Bassist Max Tuckerman is completing a masters in teaching and drummer Gabriel Argiris is running his booking agency along with playing in other local bands Bloody Hell and Turpentine Babycino.

"It's still sitting there, we're not sure what we're gonna do with it," Church said of dave's second album. "I told Max and Gabe recently that I wanna put this album out and then start thinking about how we do that album."

Yev Kassem will launch Long Nite with shows at Newcastle's Ship Inn on Saturday and at Maitland's Grand Junction on July 10.

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