Yellow Ostrich

What's a man? I'm just as soft as I can be
 —"Timothy"

Soft is the gorgeous new LP from Yellow Ostrich. It takes its name from the lyric that stands as a thesis for the entire album, a beautiful and haunting rumination on the pitfalls and pressures of traditional masculinity and on band founder Alex Schaaf's drive toward vulnerability and tenderness as core tenets of his being.

The album's ten tracks represent the first new music in seven years to be released by Schaaf under the Yellow Ostrich moniker, since he paused the project to explore new musical identities on a handful of excellent self-released albums (from which much of the best music is included on the stellar compilation Like A Bird: An Alex Schaaf Anthology 2010-2021).