You know, recently, out of the blue, I received a Bandcamp notification to let me know there was a new release from Stacy Epps, her first full-length recording since The Awakening in 2008, a record which was a pivotal and I guess totemic set from the very early days of YHO. Thinking about that record seemed to whisk me back in time to the formative days here, which perhaps with the benefit of rose-coloured glasses did feel like a time of awakening, of opening up, perhaps a period of relative enlightenment, with Obama headed for the White House amid a sudden glut of young cosmic soul adventurers sharing often abstract, spiritual, fiercely independent music. Ha. All the way from ‘Yes We Can’ to ‘Oh No You Can’t’. What was it the man sang? “Once there was confidence but now there is fear / Once there was laughter but now only tears / Once there were reasons for our optimism / But now we're all drowning in a sea of cynicism.”
