Blow Out Your Candles

In the midst of preparing for exams and writing essays I stumbled across an album, a laid-back, listen to on a Sunday with a chilled bottle of wine and good book kind of album to be exact…

The album: Blow Out Your Candles
The artist: Singer, Songwriter, Bass Player and founder member of The Jean-Paul Sartre Experience: Mr. David Yetton

The Press Release accompanying the release of Blow Out Your Candles informs you about Yetton’s past musical endeavours, so I’ll start from the beginning…

1986, The JPS Experience signed to Flying Nun Records. They released three albums and two E.P’s, toured the U.K., Europe and America, won Best Film Soundtrack at the New Zealand Film and Television Awards and released the Top Ten Album Bleeding Star and Top Ten Single Breathe before their demise in 1993. The reason: the band was shown to have died due to an “Allergic Reaction to the Music Business.”

1997, with help from member of The Muttonbirds and The JPS Experience, Yetton released the self-titled album The Stereo Bus. Largely a solo-record under the guise of a band – this album of self-penned tunes went on to win Album of the Year at the first ever b-Net awards and was nominated for Album of the Year at the New Zealand Music Awards. By this time Yetton and his band The Stereo Bus had become a live entity and as such were honoured by nomination for Most Promising Male Vocalist, Best Live Act, Most Promising Male Fox, Best Live Promising and Most Live Male.

Despite the talent that worked on and produced The Stereo Bus’s second album “Brand New” – the album won no awards – none-the-less it was captured in (NZ) history as a great record – it went on to receive a nomination for the song “Birthday” in the 1999 A.P.R.A Silver Scroll Awards.

And now we reach the point where The Stereo Bus take some time off – mental exhaustion, stage-fright, road safety campaigns – all these took their toll on the band…

2005, August 15th marked the release of Yetton’s first attempt at a solo album (Blow Out Your Candles). The songs were first recording using an acoustic guitar onto an old cassette recorded in the bathroom (the acoustics were good), the basic tracks were recorded at Platform Studio in mid 2004 and the album was completed in Dave’s home studio.

Now that you know the history behind the artist David Yetton and his debut solo album, let’s get on with the review…

As I said earlier, this is a perfect Sunday album – something to take your mind off the troubles of the week. Sit back, relax and listen to a bit of BLOW OUT YOUR CANDLES.

David Yetton = one very talented artist = one helluva a solo album
Enjoy!