Banda Yu presents its debut album through the main audio platforms – pre-save here. “HYENA” brings an experimental and authentic concept that, even before its full release, draws attention through the already released tracks, clips and visualizers.
“HYENA” mixes genres and references in an experimental pop that marks Yu’s identity. With 16 tracks, eight already released, the band appears in 2021, formed by YU (Yuri Moraes), DAN (Daniel Batista) and MA (Marco Antônio Machado).
The lyrics of “HYENA” are sewn together as a single text, as chapters of this artistic experience. One of the strengths of this story is between “Pretty Bad Things” and “Very Best Friend”, which explore themes around YU’s father’s suicide when he was 12 years old.
With the lyrical concept of emerging from the chaos of the world, “HYENA” proposes a modern and unexpected sound. Inspired by names like Daft Punk, Kanye West, Lounge Lizards and Stravinsky, the band seeks to surprise with each track.
Still talking about the sound concept, in “HYENA” the tracks can sound different from the album’s proposal when tried separately.
Two clips and eight visualizers already show that the identity – both of the band Yu and of the album “HYENA” – imprints an experience that goes beyond music. From the audiovisual takes to the costumes, everything converges to create a dialogue with the artistic concept in a unique and immersive way. Check out the interview!
Recently released, your debut album “Hyena”, brought with an experimental and authentic concept. How would you define this project and how has the launch been received?
Thank you very much! I don’t think we sat down to define what would be rationally. It was a combination of the three members’ very different backgrounds and influences and when we saw it, yu had a sort of thread within the chaos. It was a very intense and important work for us, so we tried to put a little bit of everything that we love in every corner of the album, but without trying to sound like something specific. The reception has been very positive, many people understood what we wanted to convey with the album heard afterwards, saying that it is a very different experience from the singles and clips. I think the whole album is really one thing.
Your album mixed genres and resulted in an experimental pop in the 16 tracks that are expected to complete the project. Could you tell us a little more about the band’s creative processes?
It was a bit of a crazy process, but usually I come up with an idea, main theme and start working on the basis with Dan. Then I ask Marco for things on the side. It was cool that we kind of did all the tracks at once. So we’d do a little piece of one while Marco was working on a little piece of another and I was writing something else. It was pretty crazy, but a super creative and collaborative process. I don’t think it would be possible to do it the way we did it 5, 6 years ago. Current technology has helped a lot.
Talking about the band’s history, you guys ended up coming together as a group in 2021. How did the idea to come together as a group come about?
Marco and I have been friends since I was 8 years old. He is my oldest friend. We always exchanged a lot in terms of art and we played a lot when we were kids. Life pushed us away and then brought us closer every few years. I think the whole thing was glued to BEN-YUR, because we ended up getting super close again. In the middle of the pandemic, this desire to go back to making music hit me hard, recording a serious album has always been one of the goals of my life. We started talking and sketching out plans until Dan showed up doing Podcast remixes. I was very curious about the quality and went to see his musical works and I was very impressed. I called him super on instinct and when we put the three of them together for the first time, BUNNY LOVE came out. From then on, there was not much going back.
Among the themes covered in her album are liquid relationships, traumas, anger and insecurities, all in a true introspective journey. What was it like to approach all these concepts in a single project?
It was really crazy because it wasn’t a very rational plan. The lyrics emerged during the process and at some point we changed the order of the songs and when I went to read the lyrics in order I was amazed, because it really seemed like a single text. We’re going to release a book after the middle of the year called HYENAS, which will have all the lyrics handwritten. It was like magic, I don’t know. The visualizers themselves were made individually over the course of a few months and looking at it all together in the listening party, it made a lot of sense. A lot of people put together a narrative of the story in their heads and I thought that was really beautiful.
A curiosity about your songs is the fact that they are made in a linear way, telling a single story. In the case of this album, what were the inspirations to arrive at the story?
As I said, I think it’s a very peculiar journey of my soul and what I lived to get here. The album is a self-affirmation, a recreation of identity in many ways. It is a letter of affirmation and existence to myself and a prelude to what comes next.
Still on this music story, one of the most delicate points is in “Pretty Bad Things” and “Very Best Friend”, because they are from difficult moments in your lives. How was the experience of portraying the moment in this song?
It was almost transcendental. I never spoke about this topic publicly, my father’s suicide, before these songs. It was so freeing to take that trauma that had gnawed at me and threatened to define me for so many, many years of my life and turn it into something so beautiful that I’m so proud of.
Despite being about something difficult, these reports could help many people who are going through bad times with these, however, how much strength did it take to get this message across?
This subject has always been a taboo in my life. I created a very big shield for almost two decades because I didn’t want this event to define who I was to people. It was a big job sorting things out, seeing that I’m not my dad and understanding that he was going through his own personal demons at that time. It was cathartic to receive several messages on behalf of VERY BEST FRIEND, from people who identified themselves because they felt parental abandonment in some way or another. It was a feeling of great freedom, putting it out there like that, in a period where I feel like it can’t define me anymore.
The sound of this new album also ended up complementing his lyrical concept of emerging from the chaos of the world, with a modern and unexpected sound. How do you expect the audience to receive this set of 16 songs and what do you think for the future of the band?
I feel like this is the start of something really big. This album was the best thing I’ve ever done in my life and I’m so proud to put it out there. I hope I can pass on some of that feeling and inspire people in some way out there. I feel like it’s already happening. Everything I do is done to create these connections at the core, everything else, as cool as it is, is silly. We’re already working hard on our next album and how can I say… It’s going to be pretty impressive.
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