UNFINISHED BUSINESS WITH YORKE
wORDS & PHOTOGRAPHY: ELISE ABOTOMEY
Navigating life in your early twenties can be confusing and overwhelming but Australian pop artist Yorke perfectly encompasses these emotions and makes sense of them in ‘unfinished business’ the deluxe EP. She released the deluxe in August which features the infectious single ‘airplane mode’, the track delves into vulnerable lyricism wrapped up in the dark pop world. We caught up with Yorke during her east coast run in Sydney to talk all about the new single, creating a cinematic universe and all things unfinished business.
TEMPER: So we'll jump straight in, talking about “Airplane Mode”, how did that become the opening track of the deluxe?
YORKE: That is a great question, it is my favourite song on the EP, and I knew that I wanted to do a deluxe version, and it just made sense to hold it off and I really wanted to do a video for it as well and I knew that I was going to be in Japan and we were going to try and make it happen. So it kind of all just made sense, but in terms of the list of tracks and the way it ended up, I feel like it is kind of the start of the story. I want to kind of turn my emotions off and just be and just live in the moment, and then so it's like the turning off of the emotions, and then the story progresses into like ‘love on the run’ and falling love again and just all the feelings that come with figuring out your early twenties.
T: Did you have Japan in mind when you were writing it?
Y: So I wrote the track on the same trip as ‘love on the run’. It would have been February 2023, which is crazy! It was on my first trip to LA and I worked with Lucky West, who is actually an Australian.
I don't know what was in the air that day, but we were just on fire and we wrote this song really, really fast and I think I was just happy to see another Australian. I was feeling a bit homesick, and I think I was in like the worst mood, honestly, and it just all sort of came out in the song and I love it. It's definitely my favourite still.
T: How was that experience working with Lucky?
Y: So good, he’s the best. We have worked on a few other things since then, and I'd definitely go over and work with him again. He used to play in a lot of bands around Sydney and he's great, very grateful to have worked for him.
T: You worked with Sarah Troy on that track? How did working with these two shape the song?
Y: So Sarah was the co-writer on the song and I love writing, obviously. I think when I work with co-writers, they sort of establish that we’re two strong songwriters, “let's make the best thing possible”. Sarah and I just complimented each other in different ways, where the other one was lacking and it was just really cool. It really flowed so easily and she understood the concept that I had going into it. So we were able to work fast.
You can hear some of her backing vocals and little recorded bits, poking out if you really listen. She's one of my favourite songwriters and I can't wait to work with her again.
T: Was there anything surprising about working with her as a co-writer?
Y: Not really, I only say that because we wrote this song in like three hours. So it just gelled. Lucky had just bought this weird piano accordion thing so we were just playing with a lot of really random instruments that I don't usually work with, so that was really fun! I think it just tapped into a different creativity. I wanted something that felt really fierce and confident and both Sarah and Lucky allowed a really safe space to just open up so that was really great.
T: Did any of those instruments that you don't normally play, did they make it onto the song?
Y: Oh yeah, they’re in the song! There was like this tiny, tiny keyboard and I was playing it, I had the time of my life. It was fun, we just kind of ran around the studio and we just said “let’s hit that and see what happens”, which is fun.
It's always so good when the producer is open to just being creative and you’re not pinholed into a slice sample pack or something. So we played around and developed the song.
T: Teaming up with Kyle Caulfield to create the cinematic universe. What was that like?
Y: It was great! He's actually my partner so that helps. But honestly when we work together, we definitely go into work mode. The benefit of it is that we planned the Yorke cinematic universe for about a year and a half before we actually started shooting the music videos. And I had a very strong idea of what I wanted so we just refined it over time. Living together we had the luxury to do that, and we kind of turned our apartment into a Pinterest board.
The narrative we wanted to portray, it got a bit complex at times because there's the two Yorkes and everything so we would write storyboards, colour palettes and all the themes that we wanted and he's an amazing director and I'm really blessed to get to work with him.
I think because we are able to tap into such a creative cinematic space I feel like it has really become quite my brand, which is so cool.
T: Did you have any parts that would only work if you were in Japan?
Y: For the ‘airplane mode’ music video it was very much on the fly and we pulled that together in two days. Kyle had been to Japan previously and had seen that location, (the boxing studio) and he kept it in the back of his mind for a potential ‘airplane mode’ music video. We ended up moving our flights to be able to do it and shot it in six hours. Which was crazy and chaotic, but I think not having much time just allowed us to not overthink it, which was really fun.
I really enjoyed filming that music video because I didn't overthink anything, which is kind of the meaning of the song anyway.
T: How do you hope people experience the EP?
Y: It's been so fun playing these songs and really bringing the cinematic universe into a room, no matter how big or small. It's been really fun to watch people kind of hear the songs live. They sound quite pop when they're recorded and they're a bit rockier live. The drums are such a huge element in the show now. So it's really cool, the difference between the live and the EP.
Overall I would say, I want people to be watching the music videos whilst listening to the music, whilst being at the show, which is impossible! All three!
T: Is there an ideal place or time to listen to Yorke?
Y: The visuals and the EP were very much inspired by Gotham City and I would say 90s, New York kind of spy, thriller themes. The ideal listening situation for me would be someone who has just robbed a bank and they're fleeing the scene.
