Yarn Owl Makes Waves

Pullman,WA

Yarn owl is making waves as an up and coming band out of Pullman, Washington. With alumni from Band of Horses and ether hour they are surely gaining exposure playing with the Helio Sequence, Fruit Bats, Sera Cahoone, Women, Low vs Diamond, Barcelona, and David Bazan. Take a listen to their music at myspace.com/yarnowl and see them live nearby, it is worth your while to check out these guys.

if you don't believe me check out this recent press article in the inlander.

Common Threads

Yawn Owl weaves together warm harmonies and luscious pop

Jeff Echert

Let’s play word association — when someone mentions Pullman, what’s your gut reaction? Individual mileage will vary, but we’re guessing: Cougars, Washington State University, the Palouse, beer (either referring to the growing of hops or the actual consumption of booze), and lentils. It’s a reductive thought experiment, sure. Fairly soon, though, the musically minded will add another to the list: Yarn Owl.

Definition: a cadre of like-minded musicians currently attending WSU.

In a year when pastoral, folky groups have been wildly popular, Yarn Owl stands poised to inherit at least some of that landscape-based legacy — with lush harmonies, jangling and lilting guitars, and a sense of melody that outstrips many of their contemporaries.

The constituent members of Yarn Owl — Ted Powers, Javier Suarez, Tim Meinig and Tyler Armour — are knit together from other bands. Meinig used to drum for Band of Horses, a band with whom Yarn Owl shares some stylistic touches; but while the former exhibited a Jim James-like fascination with country twang, the latter is threaded together with different strands.

Powers notes, “Javier and I were in a band called Ether Hour back in the day — we all met through KZUU [one of WSU’s student radio stations]. We just got together and we got bored in Pullman, so we decided maybe we should play some music.”

With Ted’s connection to the music department, they were...