Jasper Sloan Yip Live at the Media Club

by Irene Lo

It starts with a guy in black skinny jeans playing his guitar on stage. Keyboard, drum set, violin, and cello are there but not their band members. Jasper Sloan Yip is alone on stage.

“Lie to Me” is the first song Yip performs. It’s a stripped down, mellow tune that gives the audience a taste of his recently released second album, Foxtrot, that has moments of noisy rock and spark. “Lie to Me” rather falls in line with a quieter space. As the lead singer and face of the band, Yip looks sufficiently attractive with his fringe falling over his face as he softly mumbles into the microphone.

The rest of the band members return to the stage and a switch is turned on. “Parallel Lines” is louder than expected, louder than on record, the sound of the whole show feels rowdier than expected. Foxtrot contains pockets of rambunctious jumps that are on a quieter scale – the band bills itself as an experimental folk-rock sextet, and the two genres are certainly mixed so it never really gets one way or the other, never too out of hand, never too low-key. Jasper Sloan Yip’s shows change depending on the venue, and this night it’s a lively ruckus.

“Cut Your Teeth” clocks it in at seven minutes and is much more enjoyable live, spreading energy through the crowd. Most of the songs on the set list come from Foxtrot but with “Oh My God”, we get familiar with Jasper Sloan Yip’s first album, Every Day and All at Once, and for now it’s just Yip and the string players. Slow and lo-fi is going to trail after the next couple of songs until “Transit”, another track from Every Day and All at Once, comes on. It’s catchy, if one can judge by the synchronized clapping and one infectious line to sing along to, “my friends don’t know how much I miss them tonight”, that spurs the audience on.

“Foxtrot”, the last song from the eponymous album, is also the last song to round off the evening. It’s a duet with the band’s violinist Stephanie Chatman, and a fitting one since Foxtrot is mostly a record of Yip’s defunct romantic relationship with her, the good and bad of it all, besides being a parallel exploration of his relationship with music. “Foxtrot” is a smooth little ditty at dissonance with its lyrical content, what with Jasper and Stephanie sweetly singing that “all our sins take up too much space.”

Jasper Sloan Yip’s performance, as a whole, keeps eyes and ears riveted on the resident crooner, if not on the rest of the band members that play with cool smiles. Yip gives a shout-out to the crowd, and friendly-like, invites them all to an after party at his place on the Drive.