Space Of A Day: Birmingham Music Spotlight

BIRMINGHAM, AL — Birmingham's music scene has been thriving for several years now, and has earned a steady amount of praise from national and international media, with each year producing a new crop of critically acclaimed material. This year is no different, and as 2019 winds down, a new single has been released by Birmingham band Space of a Day.

The single, "The World Is Watching," is a song the band's singer, Autumn Yatabe wrote about a concept she refers to as "Remote Poverty Tourism."

"It is a song I wrote about the obsession people have with images of people in developing nations," Yatabe said. "It is written from the point of view of a person viewed on social media, an image with no soul, talking to the observer who has manufactured feelings and ideas about that image. A very cool video is in the works and I pretty excited about it because I was asked to come up with the concept."

The band is not set on putting out an album, but rather has focused on releasing singles.

"The way we are approaching our recorded output is we are releasing singles. Once we have enough for an album, we bundle them together, and release an album," Yatabe said. "In January we will release the third single of our second album cycle. We are already performing two other unreleased songs at our shows. I am working on lyrics for two songs right now so a new album will probably be ready by this summer."

Space of a Day has been together for two years and released the album Vivid in July 2018. The band consists of Yatabe, Ben Trexel on guitars, Keith Shannon on guitars, Danny Coyle on drums and Eric Onimus on bass.

"Ben and I write a lot. He does the music, I do the lyrics and melody," Yatabe said. "The music is a very organic process where the song just sort of evolves from his playing and my hum/singing along. Sometimes we work out the melody/harmonies while recording. We never force anything. If we reach a sticking point we take a break and come back later."

Although a somewhat extroverted person, Yatabe said songwriting is one of rare times when she is not. "The lyrics I write while alone usually with earbuds in, just humming along, I can hear the song in my head. Sometimes the first time I really sing it is when we start recording it," she said. "Writing lyrics is probably the only introverted thing I do. I write down things all of the time I hear or read or think of, to use later in songs. I am super picky about every word, they have to feel good to sing, slide nicely into the melody, and compliment the music. I'll write a whole song in 30 minutes then spend two weeks trying to change one word that bothers me."

Although influenced by a wide array of music, Yatabe said the latest single "has a Bowie/Cocteau Twins/Steely Dan vibe but Small Doses is Paul Rodgers/Ronstadt/Pretenders vibe."

Musical influences vary, she said. "Guitar music of the 70's and 80's with shorter song structures and a modern, tight edge. Ben is a genius so he can play anything and I never know what he will throw in the mix. Keeps me lively. We are big fans of Zero 7, Led Zeppelin, Yes, and Tragically Hip so they influence our thinking. We like to make music that moves you up and along."

Space of a Day has a Youtube channel and their music is available on all streaming platforms. All of this, including ways to purchase the band's 2018 LP, can be found at the band's website.