Yourself And The Air

Hailing from Chicago's lower west side, Yourself And The Air combine Midwest atmospherics with the sweeping sprawl of a skyward city built on electricity and steel. Take flight over Lake Michigan and this is your soundtrack. Songs to think to. Songs to dream to. At one moment the infinitesimal line between water and sky, the next the buzzing neons of the boulevard at night, escaping crowded bars for desolate alleys — you and a memory, Yourself And The Air.

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Yourself And The Air are three friends who've toured a majority of the U.S. and parts of Canada crammed in a van, lugging their own gear, sleeping outside, crashing on fans' floors, cooking pasta for pals, hopping hotel fences to swim in pools, drawing on the walls of bathroom stalls. They've played with the likes of Chairlift, El Perro Del Mar, Peter Bjorn And John and Portugal. The Man, among other artists. And with three EPs under their belt in as many years (¡Hola Mi Cielo! [2006], Cold Outside Brings Heavy Thoughts To Think [2007], Friend Of All Breeds [2008]), Yourself And The Air will release Who's Who In The Zoo on Lujo Records in the spring of 2011 — their first for a label — which they performed and recorded themselves in one month after thousands of miles of touring took them through 42 American states. Erick Crosby, Jeff Papendorf and Drew Rasmussen holed up in their empty Chicago house, using the comfort and space of their own home as a studio and relying on the very same instruments they grew up with to cut the seven tracks that comprise the 32-minute EP.

Who's Who In The Zoo finds the band with a renewed sense of confidence while still capturing the effervescent swirl listeners know and love them for — ambient trails followed by blasts of ozone, digging in and out of different aural pleasure centers in effortless cadences. Melodies shimmer like mirages, haunt like ghosts. Reverb guitar notes hang and transfix. Keys float loosely over firmly rooted drums. With Who's Who In The Zoo, Yourself And The Air have refined their palette and honed their sound, making music that is immediately inviting and brings to mind the spectral state between consciousness and slumber.