\”I am a stranger in a strangely intimate embrace\” Young Jesus, an indie rock quartet from Los Angeles, looks to communicate the tensions between proximity and distance,chaos and order. On their upcoming recordS/T, to be released by Saddle Creek, the band focuses on seemingly smallmoments in everyday life: phone calls with Mom, landscapes along the highway, crows in a tree. Yet with time thesestrange intimacies add up to a life. A life full of anxiety, confusion, sadness, joy, boredom, and ultimately wonder. Young Jesus mixes the emotional intensity of bands likeSlint, Pile, andBuilt To Spill with the quiet contemplation of Yo La Tengo, Mogwai, andLaughing Stock-era Talk Talk. They give themselves to moments of aggression andvolume, balanced alongside near-silence. Influenced by the writings of Donna Haraway, Timothy Morton, Wang An-Shih, Wang Wei,Joy Williams, and MarilynneRobinson, singer/songwriter John Rossiter hopes for a making-do with what we have, a sometimes wide-eyed learningprocess. Life may be too massive to grasp, but that does not mean we should shy away from it. Rather, Young Jesus triesto look toward the complexity and imperfection. \”As ever, the questions Rossiter and co. raise are too big to expect any sortof clear answer, but Young Jesus offer a model of coping, a way to remain hopeful and human within their jaws\” (VariousSmall Flames). Rossiter states, \”the ethos is to push each other to express things that are not common– like ideas of love and trust withinfriendships– through being extremely vulnerable and making mistakes. Hopefully those mistakes become framed as animportant and necessary part of process. It\’s about communication between four people. Hopefully it is the sound of fourvery good friends who want to let other people into that space.\” These may be small things, but observed with thought andcare they come to make the world of Young Jesus.