Dane Ueland is the visionary songwriter and guitarist behind the Seattle-based musical project "& Yet" .
You could call his songs folk music, but not without categorically acknowledging the distinctive, sometimes idiosyncratic array of elements from which his compositions are urbanely synthesized.
Fragments of classical fugue, soft jazz, and gypsy music coalesce over a bed of precise fingerpicking, replete with curious chord progressions, befuddling moments of calculated dissonance, tentative pauses, and unexpected but welcomed time signature changeups. Dane's vocals, softly pleading, often whimsical, sometimes assertive, and occasionally desperate, play the lead in the drama. Peaks and valleys of varying depths and heights are traversed, always with finesse, restraint, and balance. Lyrical witticisms, elegant wordplay and literary references are present in abundance.
Ueland is an alchemist of song, concocting elixirs that transport the listener to another time and place when imbibed. Think of walking into a musty library of an old, abandoned estate, pulling a book off a shelf, blowing the dust off and flipping it open to some illustration. Take that moment in which you are unselfconsciously lost in universe of the image, stretch it over the course of 3-5 minutes and you have a Dane Ueland song.
His band & Yet has morphed through a number of lineup changes in recent years: a 7 piece "rock" outfit, a trio consisting of him, a cellist and violist, and currently, a 3 piece band with bass and drums accompaniment. He has upcoming releases with the 3 piece band, as well as a record forthcoming from Minneapolis based indie label Plastic Horses records, recorded in analog fashion with studio musicians.
