Sean Bowie, under the emboldened alias Yves Tumor, is shrouded in a mysterious veil. While fans on social media fiercely debate the age of the star—25 or 52—Bowie plays coy, feeding into the frenzy and laughing in the faces of those who seek frivolous labels and convention. Despite the apparent hunger for information, there is hardly any available. Yves Tumor likes it that way. Just like their musical style, which began with ambient works and transformed over time into immersive art rock songs with an exhilarating flare, they are constantly shapeshifting.
The truth is, Bowie was never meant to be pinned down. They were never meant to be labeled. Yves Tumor makes music that transcends any of that. It is bombastic. It is carnal. It is dangerously uncouth and stunningly seductive all at once.
The captivating nature of their music, coupled with the fact that it is so difficult to track down details about the artist, creates a curious juxtaposition: music that bursts at the seams, yearning to be discovered, and its face, dancing in the shadows, spurning the grasp of human heads and hands. The result is magnetism, and Bowie knowingly plays along.
Upon hearing the name of their latest album—Praise a Lord Who Chews but Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds)—I had the insatiable desire to know what it meant.
What exactly could music that invokes the intoxication of lights, lust, and the wicked intertwining of desperately depraved bodies have to say about God? In hopes of quenching my curiosity, I decided to see what I could uncover from the lyrics.
Even from the beginning, the album’s atmosphere is unsettling. In the first song, “God is a Circle,” you sense the disturbing corpse of fear in Yves’ voice as they anxiously sputter “Everything around us feels unclean / My mama said that God sees everything”. A mysterious voice also references Yves in the third person. It declares in a jagged cadence, “Knowing you / You might hurt someone / Or yourself / You would tear / Everything apart / If you found out / Everyone you loved loved someone else”. The direct source of this judgment is unclear. Perhaps it is the embodiment of God itself, or perhaps it is another voice within the mind of Yves Tumor, grappling with the difficulty of reconciling their transgressions.
But this is not where the mystery ends. There is also the question of the song’s title. Does “God is a Circle” merely allude to God’s status as a perfect being? Might it also connect to that other voice in the song, exploring the notion that we are one unity with God by virtue of God being within us? It’s hard to know for certain what to make of this, however, one thing is clear from the opening track: In the beginning, Yves Tumor feels immense guilt and shame. In the beginning, they are small.
Another piece of the album’s puzzle is the convoluted love story which seems to be, at least in part, the source of the guilt. In “Lovely Sewer,” the album’s second track, Yves wrestles with the remorse of a past relationship. They expose their contaminated conscience through the song’s hook: “You left in a frenzy / Lovely sewer, tragedy free / You cannot start a war / Just for the feeling / What if our friends see?” Two things can be gleaned here. First, Yves is under the impression that people are constantly watching, casting judgment through callous eyes. Second, there is something unholy about this relationship that is deemed to be worth feeling shame about.
At this point in the album, Yves is noticeably disillusioned. In “Meteora Blues,” they lament that they will “always pray to an empty sky.” There is no God here. Not in a world where uninvited scrutiny inhibits a love so pure. All Yves can do is “Stare straight into the morning star / With lips just like red flower petals,” lusting to possess that tenderness once more.
However in “Heaven Surrounds Us Like a Hood,” the tune has changed. The ever-esoteric Yves Tumor seems to have found the forgiving warmth of refuge in the lines, “We found a love that made us slowly fall apart / I see the color red in so many places / This world feels so ugly when life makes a fool of us / I love the color blue because / It’s in the sky / And that’s where God is.”
Never mind the moment of disillusionment. They might have acted foolishly before, but they were hurt and time brought clarity. Order in the world has been restored. Maybe order had never left to begin with. God has been in the sky throughout it all with a divine plan for Yves and everything else. Here, the blue sky is a source of comfort juxtaposed against the red lips of sinful love.
The fierce wrestling of love and shame reaches a grandiose close in the theatrical final track, “Ebony Eye.” Yves and their lover find themselves at death’s door. By all indications, they had been expecting a fiery inferno, but instead, God grants compassion. As they lie on heaven’s stairs, God puts Yves’ mind at ease, telling them that there is, “No cause for shame, beloved saint / Another night, a different time / There’s no cause for shame”. Upon hearing these words, Yves melts away, losing themself to the glow of the “October air” and their lover.
There are several ways that I could see this final encounter with God being interpreted. The first of these is the most literal. In this interpretation, God has granted approval, for God is good and love is good too. Free from shame, Yves gets the storybook ending without any need to sacrifice more than they’ve already endured.
Another possible understanding revolves around the idea of love transcending everything, including God. In this explanation, Yves is fully enraptured by a feverish passion for their partner. The connection we all crave with other humans ultimately wins out over any judgments that might be passed. Should this be the case, I am unsure if it is meant to be interpreted as the beautiful truth or corrupt wishful thinking. The story ends with euphoria, but is it euphoric because it is truly right, or might Yves have crafted a fiction to justify things?
After all of this exploration, I’m left with more questions than answers. The esoteric nature of Yves’ storytelling feels almost as though they are taunting anyone trying to paint things in black and white. Even to the end, Yves thrives on mystery. Still, the maturity of the songwriting nags at me. It makes me believe that they wished to communicate a conscientious message. Perhaps my interpretation identified the correct meaning, but I suspect that it doesn’t matter whether or not it did. The album evoked emotion, provoked reflection of my perceptions about the world, and stuck with me since the day I heard it. I hope everyone will take the time to listen to it.
Good art makes you want to know it deeply, and good art is precisely what Yves Tumor has on their hands with Praise a Lord Who Chews but Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds). While I might not have cracked the code, I did have fun trying to decrypt it. Hey… not everyone is sharp enough to be Hercule Poirot. Cut me some slack.
Max Ray is our Editor-in-Chief. He wrote the article. Sam Thome is on our art team. They made the graphic.
Comments