People talk a lot about Melbourne’s music scene. About its array of bands and venues, its underlying culture of collaboration and support – a culture that is often incestuous but always brewing something new. For every Architecture in Helsinki and New Buffalo that graduates from this underground hotpot to something intimating mainstream success, you could trace, as if genealogically, the links between a multitude of songwriters, creative forces and their collaborators, each likely to have their own thing going on at the same time. In this manner, you will find people such as Josh Armistead, who – with two previous solo records and a 10-year history performing under his own name – now has a new record for release and a new band to play with. Well, sort of. “I guess the whole idea of TeamYes! is a bit enigmatic. I haven’t thought about it too much – this is the most I’ve ever talked about it”.

At the moment, TeamYes! is more of an idea than an actual band. In the past six months, Armistead has performed solo a dozen times, and three times as TeamYes! – a name he uses to describe a new path for his music as well as the band performing it. “I got sick of playing and writing solo, so I started writing stuff that sounded like it was multiple people playing… I thought if I just made up a name, especially one with the word ‘team’ in it, a band would form around that”.

As such, none of the songs on his new record have been written or recorded in collaboration, though writing and recording together with TeamYes! bandmate Joseph Foley is Armistead’s ultimate goal. When asked by Armistead about the solo/band dilemma, Foley –  who performs as Extreme Wheeze and is a member of Aleks and the Ramps – replies by quoting TeamYes!’s MySpace: “well, putting the ‘I’ back in team, right?”.

If there are any identity crises lurking, Armistead is sure to allay them: “As far as I’m concerned even ‘Josh Armistead’ is Josh Armistead and Joseph Foley, from now on”. Keen to clear things up, he adds: “I think for WB’s sake you should just say that it’s a TeamYes! record”.

“A record that I got to hear first, that’s my privilege, like a proof-reader”, Foley drolly adds.  

The as-yet unreleased record, tentatively titled Home Recordings, reflects the dualistic nature of TeamYes!. Many of the 14 tracks feature the kind of personal, narrative based, guitar-accompanied songwriting Armistead is known for, while others are more electronic in nature, with all manner of analogue percussion, vintage keyboards and multilayered harmonies padding out what is a warmly realised effort. “I don’t know if you’d call it electronic, though I’d definitely call it loop-based” Armistead responds when met with that label, adding: “The loop pedal is the best song-writing tool I’ve ever come across”. Elements of intimate folktronica in the vein of The Beta Band, Four Tet and Lemon Jelly can be found within the new TeamYes! sound and Armistead notes a shift from folk to electronic modes informing his new material. “It was me getting sick of writing love songs. It was too personal. I can’t listen to slow and whingeing songs sung in a delicate voice any more. TeamYes! is about abandoning my warts-and-all personal life and concentrating more on the beautiful melody of sounds, of people together, of making music as a social event. I was sick of writing songs by myself, it gets a bit lonely”.

As a live proposition, TeamYes! again reflects more a philosophy than a distinct entity. “I think every TeamYes! show could be different; some of it could be á capella, some of it could be hard trance with no vocals at all… that’s the spirit of the band, that’s why we’re called TeamYes!. We say ‘yes’ to everything, it’s a ‘can-do’ attitude”.

When they have performed live under the moniker, Armistead and Foley relied on the same loop pedal that aids in songwriting; constructing and then looping a collage of sounds with found percussion (the floor, chairs),  ‘a few suitcases full of old keyboards’, a Casio SK-1 sampler, two vocal mics, bass and guitars, which is then mixed and sent to the desk. This seemingly haphazard approach is augmented by an equally precarious preparation process. “On stage, it’s all half improvised and half stuff we’ve written that day. It’s a good way to remember stuff”, Foley says. “We’ll also play a couple of songs I know how to play decently”, Armistead adds.

Since their loop pedal broke, however, Armistead says he is investigating new ways to perform. “We want to be able to do it without a loop pedal. That would mean everything live, with one of us as a dedicated drummer, one of us on guitar, that kind of thing… anyway, I’ve come to realise that an eight bar loop gets boring after 16 bars live, but still, being able to loop live made everything much easier”. Armistead wishes to recreate the songs on the current album as they are live, but in the future anything could happen. “I think some of the songs we’ve written together are good enough to stand up live, as folk songs. And I’ve got toes, they can push buttons, we can find a way”.

While the album is yet to be slated for release, Armistead has no expectations, false or otherwise, concerning the fate of his oeuvre. He received funding from his workplace, CBD bar Hell’s Kitchen, for its pressing, and would like to find distribution because “unless you’re really dedicated it’s hard to distribute yourself, you lose track of receipts. It’s better to leave it to people who are good at that”. Armistead says he is talking to some labels but adds that the ‘worst-case scenario’ is having to self-release. “It’s what I do to keep me sane, just record music. I just give it away, there’s a word of mouth network and I have no problem with that”.
 
TeamYes! are currently planning some gigs in support of the record, but for the minute nothing is certain. Despite this apparent indecisiveness, the creative partnership of Armistead and Foley is blossoming into something broader than the narrow concerns of the record. On the day we met, Armistead was waiting for Foley (talking to us in between bursts of activity at the café in which he works) to finish work so they could go and record a bass line over one of their collaborations. In this city, where the noisy cries of cultural cringe and patriotic ideology often build to a din, there is truth to its musical flourishing. Whatever the end result, people like Armistead and Foley will always be here, making great music.