Depending on the artist, concocting a debut album can either be a blessing or a bane. On the one hand, there’s a lot of pressure to contend with — be it self-imposed or from others — and making an ...

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah at Assembly, Cate Le Bon at Basilica, a sound bath in Newburgh, a doc that puts you in the pit of a ...

The album as a self-contained unit of artistic expression holds a fascinating place in the musical landscape. For some, the rise in streaming culture has reduced its significance, with listeners able ...

Alec Ounsworth and his band Clap Your Hands Say Yeah are celebrating their 20th anniversary with the announcement of limited deluxe vinyl reissues of the landmark ...

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah blew a lot of minds when they released a fully independent self-titled first album in 2005. They had no record label, no manager, no nothing, and at a time when even “indie” ...

Welcome to Band Jury, a SPIN series in which artists defend black sheep albums they feel deserve another listen. These are projects that, for whatever reason (middling sales, negative reviews, a ...

“The connection I feel with vinyl can never be replaced by listening to something on the computer or a phone.” One-man bands tend to fall into two distinct categories: those of the self-indulgent, ...

Still, this is a Clap Your Hands Say Yeah song called “CYHSY, 2005,” so forgive us for seeking some deeper commentary on the group’s fate as hype-cycle sacrificial lambs. According to Ounsworth, the ...

A hodgepodge of hipsters in day-old clothes gathered closely together, playing obscure string and percussion instruments for a performance on NPR’s Tiny Desk concert series. It was November 2009, and ...

Weird things happen when a small band reaches critical mass, as Clap Your Hands Say Yeah must be aware of by now. In less time than it takes to pronounce their name, the indie success story of 2005 ...