Spin gathers the gentle, naïve, simplicities of Yano’s debut album, 2020’s souvenir, the sprawling arrangements of his BADBADNOTGOOD-produced sophomore effort, portrait of a dog, and the spirit of improvisation that animated 2024’s, Jonah Yano & the Heavy Loop, into a singular, concentrated document. Songwriting, as it always has been in Yano’s work, remains at the center as he espouses ease and self-assuredness.

Written and arranged across Montreal and Northern Japan’s main island of Hokkaidō, and recorded at Port William Sound in Mountain Grove, Ontario over five days, the 11 songs on Spin present Yano’s sonic identity at its simplest and strongest. He is backed by his long-time band, The Heavy Loop, with additional production contributions from Zhang (aka Monsune) and recorded with engineer Jonah Bonnetta. The shimmering water on the album cover is a picture of Hokkaidō’s Lake Shikotsu, where Yano would swim while writing the new songs. Previously, Yano has long made collaboration a cornerstone of his music – past collaborators include Mk.Gee, BADBADNOTGOOD, Clairo, Helena Deland, Ouri, Le Ren, Slauson Malone 1, Mustafa, and his father Tatsuya Muraoka among many others. On Spin, Yano is less interested in upending his musical language with collaborators than he is in distilling it on his own, reflecting the rewarding solitude of its writing process.

Yano was born in Hiroshima in 1994 and moved to Vancouver when he was four. He grew up listening to blues guitar and classic rock, learned piano under his grandmother’s tutelage, and later picked up guitar through a “School of Rock-esque” middle school program. In 2016, after moving to Toronto, he began recording demos on his cellphone and became immersed in the city’s underground music community. Many of the musicians he met there—including Monsune, Jacques Greene, Joseph L’Étranger, MONEYPHONE, and BADBADNOTGOOD—would become collaborators and friends, while helping him develop the technical vocabulary that would shape his early recordings. Yano’s work since his 2019 debut EP has earned praise from publications including Pitchfork, Billboard, The Fader, Metal, CLASH, Exclaim!, and Complex, while his music has been featured on NTS Radio, NPR’s Weekend Edition, and CBC Music’s The Intro. He has performed twice on COLORS and appeared at festivals including the Montreal International Jazz Festival and EFG London Jazz Festival, as well as touring extensively across Canada, Europe, and Japan. He has twice been a finalist for the SOCAN Songwriting Prize, for “delicate” in 2021 and “always” in 2023. His work has drawn support from figures including Gilles Peterson, Benji B, and the late Virgil Abloh.