Yoji Minor and the magic of "Ellis House"

 

"a hundred mosquitos on a plate of Oreos"

Yoji Minor, singer-songwriter, musician, DIY producer based in Hawthorne, California (just outside of Los Angeles), where he lives with his wife and daughter, admittedly writes sad songs. I love sad songs but cannot stand sad movies, maybe 90 minutes of sad is too much for me. "Ellis House" is a love song expressed with beautiful acoustic guitar, befitting somber piano, absolutely pervasive gorgeous strings (Cello and violin) courtesy of Severn Duo (via Fiverr) utilizing music Minor notated for them, and Minor's beautiful vocal performance, that feels easy and wistful pushing melodies that, in a way, might have a slight touch of a Stephen Sondheim more so than the straight folk indie tones of an outfit like, for example, The Innocence Mission (though both flashed in my mind).

"Ellis House" is a love song to another time and a special place, touchstone, the family home in Minor's youth. I have gotten lost in this beautiful, beautiful song dozens of times since it was first submitted to AP, feeling apprehensive about how I could write something to do this song justice and then I realized that Yoji Minor's own recollections are everything. His words are as magical as this song. He shares:

"I grew up on Ellis Avenue in Inglewood, CA. The house that we lived in had a gigantic plot of backyard land—like, an absurd, surreal dreamland of wild weeds and ivy, spider webs, an overgrown rusted shed from the previous homeowner. The yard was larger than the house itself, and I spent my formative years roaming around back there, making things up and digging.

I feel extremely lucky to have had the rare opportunity of growing up in Los Angeles while simultaneously being exposed to the disorder of nature. That juxtaposition of concrete structures and gasoline-reeking streets with the mysteries of grass and bugs was really important to my childhood. It did something. I can’t really explain what it did, but it did something.

This song is about that time, growing up in that old house on Ellis Avenue with my artist parents, our animals (we had a cat, a dog, three birds and a turtle), and the infinite ghosts that lived inside my budding anxious imagination. I’m not nostalgic for that time. Really, my memory is so clouded that I hardly remember how it felt to live there. But I am curious what that place did to me. I still feel haunted by certain aspects of it: the mosquitos, the bumble bees, the spiders, the concrete staircase in the backyard, the telephone wires lifted over the house, the cracked cement, the rusted shed, the smelly kitchen, the dusty windowsills."

-Robb Donker Curtius

Yoji Minor · Ellis House

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Hello, I'm Yoji Minor. I'm a Los Angeles born-and-raised artist and musician. Before releasing music as a solo artist, I played numerous shows in the LA indie-rock circuit with my band and best friends Pkwy. I've also played with my friends Small Forward and Yucky Bangs.


I currently live with my wife and daughter in the city of Hawthorne, just outside of LA. My sometimes-humorous, often-sad songs adeptly capture the American post-modern Geist of confusion and malaise we call the 21st century (lol jk idk).

Yoji Minor, Psychedelic / Freak Folk, Indie Folk, Bedroom / Lo-fi Pop, story-teller, singer-songwriter, Hawthorne, California, "Ellis House", youthful magic