David Lackner and John Thayer work under the name of YAI and call the music they create “laptop jazz”. After their debut, they now present their second album Sky Time, possibly to shed more light on what they mean by laptop jazz.
For those (quite possibly) not too familiar with the works of the duo it might help to point out that Lackner is a composer and multi-instrumentalist (saxophone, piano, flute, E.W.I., synthesisers) specialising in jazz, minimalism, and pop music. In 2008, he founded his record label and project studio, Galtta, as a vehicle for producing, film scoring, and releasing music of various like-minded artists.
On the other hand, Thayer is an audio engineer and multi-instrumentalist (chiefly drums and percussion) whose experiential compositions are inspired by a deep attention to the sounds of the natural world. His recordings, centred around a hybrid of studio techniques and improvisatory performance, range from long-form, multilayered ambiance to polyrhythmic electro-acoustic collage.
Listening to Sky Time, you are able to hear all the background experience the duo brings to YAI and is music – from the modern classical music of LaMonte Young and Marian Zazeela, under whom Lackner studied, to the greats of spiritual jazz (from Yousef Lateef to Lonnie Liston Smith) and the likes of Jon Hassell and Ryuichi Sakamoto.
YAI intricately combine all these influences and musical elements here process it (that is where those laptops come in), and turn it into music that makes sense, with or without the laptop.
