With a back story that would make any music journalist dizzy with glee, Yoav Sadan who simply goes by Yoav is an Israeli born musician of South African descent that has been a rising star on the charts and a club favorite since his inception into mainstream America after slipping his music demo into the purse of a powerful record executive. His debut album ‘Charmed & Strange’ manages to develop a unique sound presenting a broad spectrum of styles, from pop to light via soft rock and electronic rock.
A unique name to match a truly esoteric sound, Yoav manages to create a set of songs based just on his vocals and an acoustic guitar, however unlike typical singer/songwriters he doesn’t strum or play his guitar, rather he teases, taps, beats, feeds and loops effects to create a sound more closely linked to hip hop. Compared to artists like Beck, Jeff Buckley, Radiohead and Damien Rice, the folk element in his songs gives way to a sound derived from the dance floor.
Throughout the album’s 11 songs, he reinvents the use of an acoustic guitar altogether, processing and reprocessing sounds to create almost unrecognizable electronic beats, played on a loop using a pedal.
The most popular song off the album ‘Club Thing’ is a club hit featuring these electronic beats layered with Yoav’s soulful voice, a track that could have been performed by Justin Timberlake. Another track ‘There is Nobody’ highly resembles Bronski Beat's 1980s hit “Smalltown Boy," while the guitar solo on the second single off the album ‘Beautiful Lie’ is notably inspired by U2 guitarist Dave Evans' performance on the group's album "The Joshua Tree."
Sadan's album closes with his moving cover of The Pixies' "Where is My Mind”. Chosen for nostalgic reasons, he stays true to the albums experimental motif while at the same time delivering an emotional and heart wrenching performance of this critically acclaimed song.
