SCOTT YODER "Lover, Let Me In" bridges barriers in yearning for connection

Despite his somewhat flamboyant image — dandyish and otherworldly in equal measure — SCOTT YODER can be a rather distant person. Self-contained. Introspective. Cerebral. So it’s only fitting that he wrote his new solo album, “Lover, Let Me In” (out September 5th, 2025), well, solo — tucked away in his tiny house in Seattle with only a pack of feral cats for company.

“I can be aloof, but I think this record is me trying to crack that open and shake myself out of it,” he says. “This whole project is about trying to connect with people in ways I can’t through words.” And that’s exactly what he does over that suite of 10 tracks, out September 5th, bouncing between ruminations on Lebanese poets to the fall of the Soviet Union to the urgency of first love.

A native of Vashon Island, Yoder started making music after his dad bought him a garage sale guitar on his 14th birthday — raised on a steady diet of Marilyn Manson, NIN, and of course, Nirvana. From that moment on, bands became hislife, starting with the psych-rock outfit the Pharmacy, which saw Yoder and his friends touring with the Moldy Peaches, traversing Europe, and playing fests like SXSW over the course of their 10-year run. “Those guys were like brothers to me,” Yoder says. After the group disbanded — they’d simply run their course — Yoder became a folky balladeer, traveling the country with a harmonica and 12-string on buses and trains, before trading traditional Seattle denim and plaid for a painted face and frills. The campy new look was a nod to the films of Ken Russell, as well as a turn toward a more theatrical sound — more T-Rex than troubadour.

Yoder started writing Lover, Let Me In in 2021 with an unplugged electric guitar and yellow legal pad, recording on his laptop in his tiny loft bedroom. “It’s about feeling like there’s a barrier between you and someone you care about, and, no matter what you do, no matter how many different ways you try to look at it, no matter either of your good intentions, you just can’t break down that barrier,” he says. As such, that kind of longing sadness reverberates through the record, especially on “Portrait of Anneliese,” which Yoder wrote after watching a documentary about the fall of the Soviet Union. Baroque and Belle and Sebastian-esque, Yoder says the song is about a fictional soul yearning for connection in a forgotten countryside, “abandoned and left behind.”

And then there’s the thrumming, deliciously moody “Never Be Another Day,” which started as a voice memo left over from the Pharmacy days. “It’s about that kind of intoxicating infatuation and how that can be a very fleeting feeling,” he says. “Because if you don’t act on it, it’s a tragedy.” The sunny, honeyed “Feather Light,” then, is a mixture of joy and elation, love and loss, written while Yoder was working on a weed farm and reading Broken Wings by Lebanese-American poet, Kahlil Gibran. The novella follows a man as he meets and loses his first love — something Yoder, and any of us, can relate to. “I was swept up by his way with words,” he says. “And it felt good to reinterpret some of that through music.”

Music that, while created solo, is sure to reverberate through anyone who has felt alone — yearning to be let in.

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SCOTT YODER
Lover, Let Me In [LP]

(Self-Released)

RIYL: psyche-rock, glam-punk, glitter-folk
FFO: David Bowie, Lemon Twigs, Death Valley Girls, Big Star, T-Rex

***FCC CLEAN***

1. Winter’s End

2. Portrait of Anneliese

3. Never Be Another Day

4. Nobody’s Fault

5. Lover, Let Me In

6. Feather Light