Pete Yorn has been surprisingly prolific of late. Consider that it was three years between his sophomore outing, 2003’s Day I Forgot, and 2006’s bracingly eclectic Nightcrawler, the latter largely restoring the potential of his brazenly accomplished out-of-nowhere debut, 2001’s Musicforthemorningafter. Another three years between releases, and Montville, N.J.’s favorite boho chick magnet suddenly had a lot more to say. Last year saw the release of Back & Fourth, followed by Break Up, a wispy collaboration with Scarlett Johansson inspired by Serge Gainsbourg’s duets with Brigitte Bardot. Now Yorn has ditched his smokin’-hot muse for Frank Black, who encouraged the confessed perfectionist and overdub junky to strip away the studio varnish and rawk out for the new Pete Yorn (Vagrant). Yorn will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our Q&A with him.
Yorn: One of the best things about being on tour is being able to explore cities on your days off. It’s always fun to find a nice place to eat or wander around, but sometimes a town will offer something totally unique. I had heard that the new Central Branch of the Seattle Public Library was one of those spots, so I checked it out on a day off last year. It’s this massive, wildly shaped reflective structure downtown designed by the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas. Inside there are video projections, neon escalators, a womb room and pillows on the ceiling. This place looks like no other library I’ve ever been in. I highly recommend taking a tour. The bulk of the building is taken up by the stacks, which they call the “book spiral.” It’s just one long continuous spiral of shelves on a slight incline that reaches up four stories. I can’t imagine how many books are in there. And there’s enough space in these stacks so that they can keep adding new books for a while without the fear of running out of space. It’s definitely worth visiting.
Video after the jump.
