{"title":"Young Guv","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYoung Guv is a talented artist known for his unique blend of indie rock and power pop. With influences ranging from The Berries to Mo Troper, he has crafted a sound that is both nostalgic and fresh. His music captures the essence of classic 70s and 80s rock while adding his own modern twist.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eSimilar to Supercrush and Tony Molina, Young Guv's songs are filled with catchy hooks, infectious melodies, and heartfelt lyrics. Whether it's the jangly guitars of \"2nd Grade\" or the dreamy vibes of \"Dazy,\" his music resonates with listeners on an emotional level.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWith a discography that includes collaborations with The Boys With The Perpetual Nervousness and Webbed Wing, Young Guv has established himself as a respected figure in the indie music scene. Fans of Ducks Ltd., Hotline TNT, and Fury will find much to love in his catalog.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"guv-iii-and-iv","title":"Guv III and IV","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn the spring of 2020, Ben Cook — a.k.a. Young Governor, Young Guv, or just Guv — was holed up in the New Mexico high desert, his U.S. tour having been abruptly covid-cancelled during a southwest swing. He and his bandmates were living moment to moment in something called an Earthship, a solar-rigged adobe structure sustainably constructed with, among other things, recycled bottles and tires. And out there in the serene vastness, as a short ride-it-out stint turned into a nine-month sojourn, Ben was writing music, slowly, little by little, mostly at night while the others slept. By the New Year, almost in spite of himself, he had created a new album, two new albums actually, and through the ordeal he was forever changed. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn a place he never expected to be, under circumstances no one could have predicted, and in the face of physical isolation, emotional desolation, and existential dread, Ben created \u003ci\u003eGUV III and IV,\u003c\/i\u003e a collection of songs dedicated and testifying to the eternal healing power of love — how to find it in the world, in others, and most importantly, in himself. Written in the New Mexico wilderness and produced in Los Angeles, the double album will finally be available in it’s entirety this summer via Run For Cover. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eYoung Guv’s talent as a songwriter has been with us for a long time. From forming iconic hardcore act No Warning in 1998 to joining Toronto legends Fucked Up, Ben Cook started writing songs as Guv in 2008 between a slew of other projects that were ambitiously working to define the genres they operated in. When he first started working with Run For Cover in 2019, the plan was to release a single record - but with too many songs to turn away, the project expanded into his first double album, \u003ci\u003eGUV I and II\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eGUV III and IV\u003c\/i\u003e finds the same ambition and expertise in hit-making, but this time the individual records hone into specific parts of Guv’s sonic palette. \u003ci\u003eGUV III\u003c\/i\u003e is full of iconic hooks, power-pop guitar riffs and dancable-rock songs, while \u003ci\u003eGUV IV \u003c\/i\u003etakes notes from psych rock, electro pop and Laurel Canyon jangle to make something that as a whole, can only be defined as definitively GUV. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Run For Cover Records","offers":[{"title":"Purple | LP | x2","offer_id":50458689962315,"sku":"1155322","price":32.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"Yellow | LP | x2","offer_id":50458690945355,"sku":"1155321","price":34.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/756d886c-0149-470a-97f0-4ba89712446a_thumbnail_4096.png?v=1727213012"},{"product_id":"2-sad-2-funk","title":"2 Sad 2 Funk","description":"\u003cp\u003eNothing is ever as it seems with Young Guv, but it always feels good. At first glance cloaked in a bold, ready-made distance, 2 Sad 2 Funk reveals itself over time to be an emotional, perfectly crafted, detourned pop record. Young Guv is the creation of Toronto-based auteur Ben Cook, an artist with over a decade playing guitar and singing in hardcore punk groups and a long discography of Young Governing. On \u003ci\u003e2 Sad 2 Funk\u003c\/i\u003e, Guv pushes the power pop motif to its natural, 21st post-structuralist conclusion: it’s an album ridden with the cultural noise that bleeds through human interaction, distorting relationships and eroding that great Luv you thought you had. Audibly referencing everything from classic guitar pop The Toms or Dwight Twilley through Prince-ian ecstacies to a buried, trancegressive House music, the attention deficit belies a modern age plagued by distraction and performance anxieties. These days, the heart can break in new ways.\u003cbr\u003e Perhaps Young Guv isn’t trying to soundtrack this breakdown in our relationship to Luv, but there’s\u003cbr\u003e something unmistakably broken down underneath these songs’ palette of fuzzy synths, crisp snare\u003cbr\u003e cracks and emotionally synthesized vocals. Throughout \u003ci\u003e2 Sad 2 Funk\u003c\/i\u003e, Cook’s approach is to\u003cbr\u003e contextualise these modern unlove songs within a bedrock of collaged sounds, TV and Radio adverts, studio out-takes and warped experiments. The effect is hallucinogenic and serves to blow up his pop songs to epic, life-affirming proportions. The title-track slides into your life like a precautious Luv-er, a romantically doomed, electro-funk ballad that strikes the perfect balance between melancholy and creepiness. It feels good as long as you don’t attempt to decode the anxiety beneath it. \u003ci\u003eStand-out Stand In The Way \u003c\/i\u003eis one of the most ecstatic heartbreaks Cook has ever committed to tape, a chorus that puts the listener in an open-top sports car speeding down an ocean highway, the sun bleaching out the pain, but not completely. Instrumentals like St. Clair provide the bridges, like a club music thumping in the background to your latest drama, while a track like \u003ci\u003eYou’ve Been Acting Strange Lately\u003c\/i\u003e invokes a pantomime response in the listener: over a slinky, ecstatic 90s house beat Guv is “only questioning your love, because you’ve been acting strange lately” – we want to shake Guv and say “they’re just not that into you” but also, the sadist in the listener wants to let him suffer and keep writing these transgressive pop songs. \u003ci\u003e2 Sad 2 Funk\u003c\/i\u003e constructs a hyper-reality of commerce, pop references and ecstasies that reveal an\u003cbr\u003e addictive, hyperactive emotional underneath it. Young Guv seems removed from the picture but really he’s there a little too much for his own good. \u003ci\u003e2 Sad 2 Funk\u003c\/i\u003e is not what you thought at first, but it feels good, whatever it is. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Night School","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":50467878437195,"sku":"1034166","price":19.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/850e4398-508d-4033-99c5-2fea5ac6b467_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727342827"},{"product_id":"guv-i-and-ii","title":"GUV I and II","description":"\u003cp\u003eYoung Guv only makes hits, baby. It's what he was born to do. Too many hits, in fact - since last summer, Guv (a.k.a. Ben Cook) moved to Brooklyn from his native Toronto and wrote music, because that's what Young Guv does. This manic pace produced two albums worth of power-pop bliss, psychedelic riffs, and swagger that would make a Gallagher (the British ones, not the watermelon ones) blush. The end result: \u003ci\u003eGuv I and Guv II,\u003c\/i\u003e two full-length albums.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBoth of Young Guv's releases from this year in one reimagined set on colour vinyl. It features new art laid out and illustrated by Braulio Amado as well as two new bonus tracks exclusive to the release. 19 tracks in one set, for your ears only.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Run For Cover Records","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":50506979410251,"sku":"1076846","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/983146ff-3cf6-44bd-bcb7-ee000aed1731_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727835292"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/collections\/test_f3484d8f_thumbnail_4096_7783478c-c298-4146-9307-710a8e9d9afa.jpg?v=1727212981","url":"https:\/\/shop.roughtrade.com\/collections\/young-guv.oembed","provider":"Rough Trade","version":"1.0","type":"link"}