Arthur Yoria Shakes Things Up

Arthur Yoria. Photo: Jay Dryden Photography/Copyright Jay Dryden 

There are two routes in the singer songwriter than an artist can take.  Either you can emulate someone else or you can forge your own path, but those are pretty much your only two options, in most genres of music.  And while the latter is the more difficult route, that’s the path that Chicago native and Houston transplant Arthur Yoria has chosen. For so many years Houston has had the mindset of “do we deserve this,” which is how I felt about Yoria’s songwriting craft.  Though he’s lived all over North America, as well as toured the globe, Yoria brings his own style to our city’s music scene.  With a new album on track to be released next year, Yoria’s team at Splice Records offered Free Press Houston a chance to debut his latest single a day before it’s to be released.  The song, “Shake” is definitely a cut above the rest while offering up a mix of complex sound and catchy chorus, the end result is Yoria’s ahead of the curve style through and through.

The quirky opening is enough to grab ahold of your attention before Yoria’s voice seeps onto the track like a ghost in the room.  Adding instrumentation like pedal steel and multiple guitars, Yoria keeps you in suspense before his chorus rolls in to grab ahold of your senses and stick in your head.  The catchy nature of the song mixed with a different approach gets your head bopping before it’s ever close to being done, and that chorus is one so strong you’ll know every word of it before you’ve hit the replay button.  This is definitely Arthur Yoria 2.0, while changing up his former style and adding a new twist to his already infectious songs, Yoria proves sometimes you can teach a dog new tricks.  With production from guitar slinger Kelly Doyle, mixing by SugarHill production guru Steve Christensen and a master from Chris Longwood; the song emanates those higher levels of what Houston’s music scene has to offer.

While we all get down with Yoria in anticipation of his full length release next year, this song should be enough to tide even the most diehard fan over.  The single version of “Shake” is available on all platforms tomorrow Friday December 9.  You can catch Arthur Yoria at Leon’s Lounge on Monday December 19.

by David Garrick