Yngve

Yngve serves as the performing alias for the singer/songwriter Yngve Wieland. Although born in Germany, Wieland grew up in Ireland and absorbed his initial musical training through regular family gatherings at the household in Sligo, where American folk, blues, and country traditions mingled with the peak period of rock & roll. Within today’s Americana landscape he discovered like-minded artists such as Wilco, Bright Eyes, and Rilo Kiley; consequently, female voices have remained central to his work, both through backing singers and through the duets that appear on his first album, Tell Men This.

Wieland entered the world in Kirchheimbolanden, Germany, before relocating as a youngster to Sligo on Ireland’s rural western coast. Those childhood sessions sparked his curiosity, yet he charted an independent course after beginning guitar instruction and encountering the intricate fingerstyle blues of Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Boy Fuller, and Robert Johnson. From that foundation he broadened his listening to include other players shaped by the same sources and started composing his own material. Still performing alone at that stage, he settled in Dublin and issued his debut EP of original songs, Four Weeks, through his self-run Posttone Records imprint in 2004.

Subsequently Wieland explored working with a complete ensemble and helped establish the experimental arts organization known as the Space to Be Yourself Collective, which supplied the core personnel for his live and studio unit. The group’s original configuration dissolved just before he received the chance to record his first full-length project, prompting the formation of a fresh, rotating roster that eventually numbered sixteen participants; among them were vocalists Bennie Reilly and Michelle Considine, both members of the Dublin band little xs for eyes, along with drummer Finn Murray and bassist Paul Diamond, each of whom had appeared in the collective’s earlier lineup.

During 2007 and 2008 Wieland handled the recording, production, and mixing of his debut album Tell Men This, which reached Irish listeners in October of the year that followed. Once the record appeared, he shifted base to London and recruited yet another band, this time enlisting his brother Demien Wieland on drums, Finnish bassist Pálmi Gunnlaugur Hjaltason, and keyboardist Ned Cartwright. Under the Yngve moniker the ensemble put out one last single and EP, Have You No Love, in July 2009, after which the project adopted the name Yngve & the Innocent for all future releases.