Yesturday & Tamarlow by Rainwater

Bringing new life into this world is an experience that is both awe-inspiring and harrowing. On Yesturday & Tamarlow, Seattle’s Rainwater deftly balance on the knife edge between boundless love and bottomless terror that comes with becoming a parent in these precarious times. Inspired by the birth of singer/songwriter Blake Luley’s first daughter, Yesturday & Tamarlow finds him grappling with new fears and anxieties, while also finding space for self-acceptance and awestruck wonder at the simple beauty of it all.

From the opening sounds of a fetal heart monitor and the repeated refrain of “Oh my God” on “Cottonwood Snow”, the band’s intimate, dreamy indie sound remains intact, but is now infused with a spiky nervousness. Songs like “Baby’s Alright” and “Shadow” vibrate with the newfound neuroses of a brand-new parent, while others like “Holding Water” and “Goosebump Skin” glow with quiet awe and domestic bliss. Elsewhere on the album, Luley grapples with the inherent strangeness of revisiting your old stomping grounds many years down the line, before finally making peace with his younger self. “I was hoping I could be two selves freely” he sings on “Visiting”, capturing the essential tension of middle age, when one is equally stuck between the past and future. The instrumentation reflects this duality as well, as glimmering keys and sighing pedal steel are offset by noisy, acidic guitars.

These songs were arranged with James Kassinger on drums and Jesse Botello on bass, and recorded in Luley’s basement-turned-studio with Samuel Rosson, in elusive snatches of time between teaching at an elementary school and being a dad. The homespun recordings are filled out by friends and family, including Blake’s wife Aviva Stampfer, cousin Amy Godwin, and close friends BJ Choe and Neil Acharya. Becoming a parent is scary, a radical recontextualization of your entire life, but it’s also a beautiful, mysterious encounter with infinite love, and with that in mind, Yesturday & Tamarlow ends on a note of tender grace: “You are all, all I need.”

- Gleb Boundin (poet, fellow dad, and subject of "Old Selves")

RIYL: Arthur Russell fronting a 2000’s era indie rock band a la Modest Mouse, Interpol, The National.

Tracklist

1.	Cottonwood Snow
2.	Baby's Alright
3.	Shadow	3:11

4.	Impossible Thing
5.	Visiting	4:34

6.	Bluebelly	3:46

7.	Holding Water
8.	Goosebump Skin
9.	Old Selves
10.	All I Need

Credits

releases October 3, 2025

Songs written by Blake Luley, who also played singing, guitar, a little bit of bass, synth/keys, programming

Arranged with:
James Kasinger- drums, percussion, flute
Jesse Botello- bass
BJ Choe- pedal steel
Aviva Stampfer- lead vocal on "All I Need", more singing throughout
Neil Acharya- singing
Amy Godwin- singing
Carol Stampfer- singing, flute
Zahava Stampfer-Luley- ambient jazz guitar & piano on "Visiting" and counting off on "Baby's Alright"

Recorded and mixed in the basement (Rainier Beach, Seattle, WA) by Samuel Rosson (July 2023) & Blake Luley (bits of time between July 2023 and November 2024)
Mastered by Nich Wilbur at The Unknown in February 2025 (Anacortes, WA)

Typography & vinyl artwork by Scott Porcelli
Front cover photograph by Blake Luley
Design and editing by Dhruv Chanchani

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