YESNESS

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What did we all crave more than anything in the fever pitch of the pandemic? Sweaty shoulders. Crowded rooms. Pressed flesh. Anything to remind us what connection feels like within the architecture of our bodies. It might seem counterintuitive, then, to voluntarily start a cross-country, fully remote band in a post-COVID world, right? Yesness begs to differ.

Even as the obstacles to meaningful connection mount into an Everest-ian hurdle, artists nevertheless find ways to bend the technologies of our days to foster visceral human connection, rather than bereft isolation. Comprised of a West Coast bassist (Kristian Dunn of El Ten Eleven) and an Appalachia-adjacent drummer (Damon Che of Don Caballero), Yesness forges a friendship mediated through the language of collaboration, all formed through emailed song sketches and text exchanges of Van Halen demos.

The odd couple of Dunn and Che was the result of some clever musical matchmaking by Karl Hofstetter, founder and curator of Joyful Noise Recordings. Karl introduced Dunn and Che via email in April 2023 after Dunn’s prolific output outgrew the resources and abilities of his instrumental duo El Ten Eleven. Less than a year later, after countless text messages and song sketches were exchanged, and one fateful meeting at a recording studio was organized, their nascent project’s debut record, See You at the Solipsist Convention, was complete.

Despite Che’s initial unfamiliarity with Dunn’s musical output, their personalities bridged any and all gaps—both Che and Dunn share a flair for the comically absurd and musically adventurous, a mindset that shines throughout See You at the Solipsist Convention. Che has become legendary for his calculated polyrhythms and undeniable physicality, while Dunn is known for relentless experimentation and productivity akin to a freight train. Quickly, this unlikely pair transformed into destined collaborators.

“We were ships in the night of the musical variety until Karl found a way to merge our paths,” Che said of his introduction to Dunn. “There are very few comparisons in the aesthetic approach to how we created the music. We worked remotely for eight months before physically meeting for the first time at the recording studio.”

Neck-deep in their own ambitions, Che and Dunn swapped musical ideas and quirky song titles throughout the summer, working at a breakneck pace. Star Wars references were intertwined with walloping bass lines (“If You Say So”); non-sequiturs were punctuated by Che’s signature frenetic percussive jabs (“Horror Snuggle”). Scaffolded around eight-string bass, knotty percussion, and intricate syncopation, See You at the Solipsist Convention is a carnival of delights for fans of the post-everything persuasion—uncategorizable yet reverent to the altar of instrumental rock.