The Yagas - Debut Album 'Midnight Minuet' Out Now!
Alt rock band The Yagas, fronted by Oscar and Emmy-nominated actress Vera Farmiga, has released their full-length debut album, Midnight Minuet. PRESS HERE to listen. The 10-song independent collection – already hailed as an “unexpected masterpiece” and a “spellbinding sonic journey” – includes the previously released singles “The Crying Room,” “She’s Walking Down” and “Life Of A Widow” as well as new focus track “I Am.” Midnight Minuet was produced by keyboardist Renn Hawkey (formerly of famed alt-metal band Deadsy), mixed by GRAMMY® nominee Brian Virtue (Deftones, 30 Seconds to Mars) and mastered by GRAMMY® winner Emily Lazar (Beck, Coldplay).
“We had so much fun writing and recording our debut album, Midnight Minuet,” shares the band. “Every track is a spell, brewed in a cauldron of our melancholy and madness, spiked with a shot of haunted Catskill honey. We howled, we whispered, we cackled, and we cursed as we found our rhythms together. We wrote lyrics in margins of tax forms, student papers, and scripts. We rehearsed under full moons and skipped PTA meetings and Zooms to make it happen. We recorded parts of it everywhere – in basements, bathrooms, bedrooms, attics, and messy schools. Listen close, you just might hear offspring quoting Eric Cartman or squeaky stools in the verses. A rabid coyote contributed to the backing harms, we left it in. We knit/purl these songs with our feelings. Go on, unravel them. Enjoy. With love, Baba Yaga’s weird American cousins, The Yagas.”
On Midnight Minuet, The Yagas – also featuring Jason Bowman (drums), Mark Visconti (guitar) and Mike Davis (bass) – adorn even the darkest moments with unexpected bursts of ineffable beauty, as evidenced by the album’s opener and the band’s debut single “The Crying Room.” Paired with a darkly enchanting video co-starring Gogol Bordello frontman Eugene Hütz, the primally cathartic track was partly inspired by the horrors endured by Farmiga’s extended family since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. PRESS HERE to watch the official music video for “The Crying Room.” Follow-up single “She’s Walking Down” fully immerses the listener in a brutal but exhilarating tale of violence and vengeance. The track’s hauntingly beautiful music video – directed by Farmiga, marking the first piece of art she’s directed in 15 years – depicts a dark dream that Farmiga repeatedly had about her young daughter in peril. PRESS HERE to watch the video for “She’s Walking Down.”
Newest single “Life Of A Widow” is an explosive yet luminous portrait of anticipatory grief, a song of searing lament, sparked from an oddly hypnotic beat constructed by Hawkey after awaking from spinal surgery. The song’s cinematic visual vividly captures the essence of the track – PRESS HERE to watch. The first song penned by The Yagas is the gloriously frenzied epic “I Am,” which immediately catalyzed the spirit of creative abandon that would come to define all the New York-based band’s output. Like much of Midnight Minuet, “I Am” centers on a sublimely unfettered vocal performance from Farmiga. Elsewhere is “Pendulum.” Rooted in a gorgeously ethereal riff composed by Visconti, the track drifts from aching fragility to devastating fury as Vera delivers what she refers to as a “Lynchian love letter to certain people in my life who don’t always have the strongest handle on their emotions.” Full track listing for Midnight Minuet below.
Formed in 2023, The Yagas took shape after its five members met at Rock Academy (a Woodstock-based music school run by Bowman) and began playing together in the school’s adult program, discovering an undeniable musical chemistry. An audacious band with otherworldly origins, The Yagas borrowed their name from the mystical Slavic folklore figure Baba Yaga, believed to devour the souls of the newly deceased to safeguard the fountains of life. The quintet wholly shares their namesake’s storied penchant for shapeshifting, morphing from metal to industrial to wildly extravagant alt-rock as their songs journey into the strangest depths of the human psyche. Since debuting last fall, The Yagas have amassed over 3 million collective streams and views, received early comparisons to A Perfect Circle, The Cure, and Type O Negative, and earned praise and support from Revolver Magazine, Metal Hammer, Classic Rock Magazine, NME, The Noise/Ones To Watch, Stereogum, Blabbermouth, Bloody Disgusting, Rock Cellar Magazine, and more.
The Yagas are also using their platform to shed light on Ukrainian culture and help those in need by raising money for Support Action Ukraine with their rendition of the popular Ukrainian love song “Chervona Ruta” with Gogol Bordello. With Vera and Eugene both of Ukrainian heritage, they recently released a special live performance video of “Chervona Ruta” – PRESS HERE to watch and donate – and created a limited edition t-shirt with all proceeds going to Support Action Ukraine – PRESS HERE to purchase.
As shown on Midnight Minuet, The Yagas embody a potent duality of shadow and light, ferocity and tenderness. In sharing their debut body of work with the world, The Yagas aim to further their namesake’s legacy in their own ultimately benevolent way.
Midnight Minuet Track Listing
1. The Crying Room
2. I Am
3. Life Of A Widow
4. Anhedonia
5. Pendulum
6. Charade
7. Bridle
8. Pullover
9. She’s Walking Down
10. Midnight Minuet
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Photo credit: Franco Vogt (IG: @franco.vogt)
