Multi-artist Jonah Yano shares a new single “Someone Asked Me How I’ve Been.” The track, is lifted from his his forthcoming LP Jonah Yano and The Heavy Loop, available October 4th via innovative Leisure the new song takes the sonic framework of Jonah’s roaming, improvisational 30-minute track “The Heavy Loop” and distills it into a focused track that opens with Jonah’s guitar and widens its scope as more of the band joins in. “Someone Asked Me How I’ve Been.” centers on the confusion of being two things at once – a reflection from the time Jonah spent touring in Japan for the first time, where he grappled with being a mixed Japanese person in Japan, as well as feeling lonely and aimless at a time when he imagined he’d be living a dream of sharing his music in the place he’s from.

“Someone Asked Me How I’ve Been” serves as a testament to the collaborative environment Jonah set out to create when making this album, one open to improvisation and melding the collective visions of each member in his live-ensemble-turned band: Christopher Edmonson, Benjamin Maclean, Leighton Harrell, Felix Fox-Pappas and Raiden Louis. Jonah remains at the helm as the record’s conductor and central figure, but draws on the strengths and inspirations of each member of the band to craft an album that evolves as the musicians involved work together to achieve a collective vision.

Having emigrated to Vancouver from Hiroshima at the age of four, much of Yano’s approach to music is influenced by his own fractured identity as a member of the Japanese-Canadian diaspora, as well as his larger interest in memory, family histories, and the nuances of interpersonal relationships. The result is a soundtrack that defies easy genre categorization and captures the grey area in which we can find the most fruitful experiences life has to teach us while also highlighting Jonah’s expert musical compositional skills. Yano’s band – composed of Raiden Louie (Drums), Chris Edmondson (Saxophone, Clarinet, Synthesizer), Benja (Guitar), Leighton Harrell (Bass) and Felix Fox-Pappas (Piano, Rhodes) — first came together to record his 2023 single “concentrate” with Clairo.

Yano hascollaborated with Charlotte Day Wilson’s on her album Cyan Blue and Mustafa’s forthcoming album Dunya. In 2023, Jonah released his sophomore album portrait of a dog, co-produced alongside BADBADNOTGOOD. He was twice-nominated for the SOCAN Songwriting Prize, drawing the attention of Gilles Peterson, Benji B and the late Virgil Abloh.

Jonah Yano
Jonah Yano & The Heavy Loop
Innovative Leisure

1. Devotion
2. Concentrate
3. No Petty Magic (feat. Helena Deland, Ouri)
4. Romance ESL
5. Snowpath (feat. Clairo)
6. The Language of Coincidence
7. Someone Asked Me How I’ve Been
8. The Heavy Loop

Order Jonah Yano & The Heavy Loop HERE