Holm

The solo endeavor of Yung’s frontman Mikkel Holm Silkjær channels a more intimate and emotionally direct take on the rich, moody post-punk textures and propulsive dance-rock energy that define his indie-rock group. His first proper solo album, the 2022 release Why Don't You Dance, drew its title and overarching idea from a Raymond Carver short story, whereas the more detached 2023 follow-up Alien Health drew thematic cues from the work of exiled Hungarian writer Ágota Kristóf; the latter record gained much of its punchier character when Holm swapped his usual effects pedals and amplifier for a Marshall stack.

Raised in Aarhus, Denmark, within a household steeped in music—his father played in Studson, an uncle ran a record shop, and his mother worked with area performance spaces—Holm took up drums at four and guitar at ten. After a brief teenage rejection of the art form, he rediscovered the same deep-rooted enthusiasm and, by sixteen, was leading the Danish hardcore outfit Urban Achievers. Yung itself came together only after his father happened upon unreleased demos on Holm’s laptop; those melody-driven tracks sat uneasily alongside his other commitments, prompting the creation of a separate vehicle.

To realize the project live, Holm recruited Snarehats colleagues Frederik Nybo Veile on drums and Tobias Guldberg Tarp on bass, later adding Emil Zethsen for extra guitar. The band’s debut LP, Falter, appeared solely in Denmark until 2015, when it was trimmed to EP length and retitled Alter for wider distribution. That September they issued a second EP, These Thoughts Are Like Mandatory Chores, before delivering their first full-length album aimed at international audiences, 2016’s Youthful Dream, via Fat Possum in the U.K. and Tough Love Records in North America. Tough Love also put out Holm’s initial solo EP, Dappled, in mid-2018.

Following his move to Stockholm’s PNKSLM imprint, Yung issued the 7" single pairing “Progress” with “New Fast Song” in September 2020; four months later the label released the album Ongoing Dispute. By then Holm already had substantial material for his own debut long-player, finishing the words after encountering Carver’s “Why Don’t You Dance?,” a tale centered on a man whose private intentions stay opaque even to the reader. Tarp recorded the sessions over six months and shared production duties with Neil Robert Young, resulting in Why Don't You Dance appearing on PNKSLM in early 2022.

While shaping its successor from late 2020 onward, Holm found himself confronting feelings of solitude and detachment, turning for guidance to Kristóf’s explorations of conflict, isolation, and longing. Once more working with Young, he captured the tougher, more abrasive Alien Health in December 2021 alongside guitarist Anders Ahle of Trader, bassist Ben Stidworthy of Ought, and drummer Kristian Vissing of Trader, tracking straight to a Marshall stack with no additional layers.