Running the emotional gamut from cooly contemplative to fiercely dissonant,
Joyero is an electronic pop project created by composer and multi-instrumentalist
Andy Stack. On the debut
Joyero album, 2019's
Release the Dogs,
Stack creates sleek soundscapes from suspended synthesizer lines, built around spare but tuneful melodies. He next adds vocals delivered in a hushed whisper, spare percussion patterns, and sounds that run with or against the current of the tunes given the mood the artist is hoping to evoke.
Joyero represents
Stack's debut solo project after establishing himself as a valued collaborator with other musicians.
Joyero founder
Andy Stack was born in 1985 in Baltimore, Maryland. After completing high school, he attended the University of Maryland, and later went on to attend the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston. In 2006,
Stack and
Jenn Wasner, a fellow Baltimore indie rock fan who had known
Stack since high school, formed the duo
Wye Oak, with
Stack on drums and keyboards and
Wasner on guitar (later bass) and vocals.
Wye Oak grew into a successful and critically celebrated indie band, evolving from a folk-accented sound into an approach that embraced electronic influences. As
Wye Oak's profile rose,
Stack found there was a demand for his talents during his time off from the duo. He became a frequent sideman with the groups
EL VY and
Lambchop, appeared on recording sessions with
Shearwater,
Madeline Kenney, and
Helado Negro, and composed the music for the 2017 independent film Black Mud, as well as scoring a handful of television commercials.
At a time when
Stack found himself with spare time between musical commitments and romantic relationships, he holed up in a small studio in his adopted hometown of Marfa, Texas, and started assembling his first solo recordings. Eventually,
Stack recorded a full album's worth of electronic-based pop tunes, and Merge Records, the label that also released
Wye Oak's recordings, struck a deal with him to issue his new solo material.
Stack adopted the name
Joyero for the project, and Merge issued
Release the Dogs in August 2019. ~ Mark Deming