Back & Fourth

Personnel: Pete Yorn (vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, percussion); Jonny Polonsky (acoustic guitar, electric guitar, electric 12-string guitar, nylon-string guitar, bajo sexto); Mike Mogis (electric guitar, baritone guitar, E-bow, hammer dulcimer, mandolin, Wurlitzer organ, percussion); Anton Patzner (violin); Louis Patzner (cello); Nate Walcott (strings, horns, piano, tack piano); Leslie Fagan (flute, alto flute); Darrin Pettit (tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone); Tom Hartig (tenor saxophone); Scott Quackenbush (trumpet); Jason DeWater (French horn); Jay Wise (trombone); Craig Fuller (tuba); Ben Brodin (pump organ, Wurlitzer organ, vibraphone); R. Walt Vincent (Wurlitzer organ, bass synthesizer); Joey Waronker (drums, percussion); Scott Gaeta (drums); Orenda Fink (background vocals).
Audio Mixer: Mike Mogis.
Audio Remasterer: Vlado Meller.
Recording information: ARC, Omaha, NE.
Photographers: Stephen Albanese; Autumn de Wilde; Kii Arens.
Arrangers: Anton Patzner; Louis Patzner; Mike Mogis; Nate Walcott.
Pete Yorn throws open the studio doors with BACK & FOURTH, his first album to feature heavy contributions from a backing band. Drummer Joey Waronker, guitarist Jonny Polonsky, and former Azure Ray vocalist Orenda Fink are among those featured, and the presence of producer Mike Mogis--chief architect of the Saddle Creek sound--gives the material a tasteful gloss. Traces of Californian folk-rock can be found throughout these ten tracks, particularly in the jangle of "Last Summer" and the breezy, coastal sway of "Paradise Cove." Nonetheless, Yorn's fourth album is a fairly depressed affair, eschewing the West Coast's sunny weather for the lonely, windswept vistas of Nebraska, where the album was recorded in early 2008. There's beauty here, yet it's more melancholic than buoyant, with Yorn giving the most screen time to his failed relationships and various missteps. "Same old town, loose ends surround me, always drags you down," he sings on the album's final track, an elegiac piano ballad brimming with vibraphone, upright bass, and understated guitar. Songwriters don't have to be happy to deliver a good hook, of course, and tunes like "Close," "Last Summer," and "Shotgun" balance Yorn's temporary gloom with tight pop/rock songcraft.