All You Need to Know About...Yoav

by Kev Geoghegan
Radio 1 music reporter

Israeli-born and raised in South Africa, Yoav Sadan plays his acoustic guitar, well, a little differently.

Yoav in mid flow at the Coachella music festival in California

Through a series of pedals, the singer songwriter uses the instrument to create the drum beats, bass lines and scratches that fill his debut album, Charmed and Strange, which was released on 5 May.

"Because I'm a little clueless about technology, my whole style's come about trying to make those sounds come out of my guitar", he told Newsbeat.

"It's dark pop music with shades of trip hop, hip hop and electronica all peeking in but all done on the acoustic guitar."

The son of an architect and an opera singer, Yoav experienced quite a strict upbringing and was forced to sneak out of his parents house to listen to music.

He said: "I was classically trained and pushed towards classical music but I rebelled and learned the guitar in secret for a couple of years because my parents were quite hardcore.

"I think the first record I got was Sgt Pepper because it was seen as fairly serious. Then I kept pushing the envelope until it was Rage Against The Machine blasting in my bedroom."

Yoav's first taste of fame was when he was plucked out of the crowd at a Crowded House concert in Cape Town and he performed in front of the 15,000 strong audience.

10 years on from that, the online buzz started when one of his tracks, Club Thing, became a hit on MySpace.

Critical acclaim

He has been compared with artists as diverse as Beck, Damian Rice and even Justin Timberlake, but he insists he is difficult to classify.

He said: "It's hard because every song's different, some songs people hear a Prince or Justin Timberlake comparison, but there's a song, Adore Adore, which some people think sounds like acoustic Nine Inch Nails."

He also admits to being guilty of flicking through his reviews.

I rebelled and learned the guitar in secret because my parents were quite hardcore Yoav

He said: ""It's quite tempting when you're on the road and you're bored and you've done all your emails and stuff.

"I try not to, because reviews and comments either inflate or deflate you.

"You can read something and you can be gutted or you can see something else and think, 'Yeah, I'm brilliant'."

Yoav is supporting Ladytron in London on 15 May and will appear at several festivals in the UK this summer including Glastonbury, Unleashed in Newquay and Bestival.