All of the Feels with Electronic Music’s Odd Man Out: Yotto at Studio B

Last updated on November 26th, 2019 at 04:19 pm

Last night, Deep House heads reveled in the “power somber” music of Yotto in the Skyway Theatre’s Studio B. No matter the situation, Yotto’s music always has a way of hitting you right in the feels, and this go-round was no different.

Yotto is Otto Yliperttula, a rather tall and handsome fellow hailing from Finland. Yotto produces a somewhat complicated flavor of electronic music that makes you feel sad listening to it, but it’s the kind of sad that you like to feel. At least I do, and so did the room full of people stuffed into the Skyway’s Studio B last night. 

It was cozy, but there was still plenty of room to move around without running into anybody. It felt like the attendance was a healthy distance from the room’s 500-person capacity. But, from what I’ve found in fans of Yotto, nobody is really a casual fan. No, these were diehard listeners who listen intently “at” Yotto more than they do “to” Yotto.

The set last night varied quite a bit from the previous performances I’ve seen, which date back a few years to Electric Forest 2016. In sets past, it felt like the setlist was more cohesive and sonically similar, whereas last night’s performance exposed a new side of Yotto’s music. It’s growth, which we don’t always want, but that we definitely need, and it sounded alright. 

Yotto’s been a busy man as of late, starting up his own label, releasing a full-length album, starting a new mixtape series, and embarking on a North American tour for the duration of the fall. 

As the night pressed on, the sounds grew a little more familiar, focusing primarily on his own catalog, including the stellar “Shifter,” a mini-epic adventure of a song that I wore out over the course of this past summer. As the music grew a little more familiar, the energy intensified as if we’d all been snapped out of a trance. 

There were no crashing, cinematic drops. That’s not what his music is about. It’s an engaging bed of downtempo synths, circular melodies, and backing percussion that never gets in your face. It holds you in a beautiful moment for as long as you can bear it. It seemed like last night, even at the end, we all could have just kept going for as long as he could. 

Can I get a show of hands for extending closing times to 4:00 AM?