Bonnaroo 2024 Artist Spotlight: Yves Tumor

Like we’ve been doing for many years now, we’re making it our mission to help you get acquainted with many of our favorite acts from Bonnaroo‘s 2024 lineup. After roaring back to life in 2022, after two years off due to Covid and weather, and feeling fully like its old self again with a great fest last summer, this year marks Bonnaroo’s 21st installment (and 23rd anniversary), boasting not only another great and varied lineup, but also a continuation of some of the big changes and improvements rolled out over the last couple of years, with more flexibility in ticketing and camping, a reimagined “Outeroo” campground area, new activations, and further new ways to Roo. Back once again in its usual June 13-16 timeframe, we’re counting down the days until another great weekend on the farm.

As we dig through the entire schedule, we’ll highlight a spread of performers spanning across genres and stages, big and small, new and old, to bring you some of the most interesting, lesser-known, and most highly-recommended among this year’s crop of artists. And as our time at ‘Roo approaches, we’ll also be bringing you some special features and full list-style daily lineup guides, to help you plan your weekend ahead of the fest. While these previews won’t span every artist, and might omit some more obvious must-see acts, we hope they’ll serve as a way to help you navigate Bonnaroo’s gargantuan lineup, and to make the most of your busy weekend at the fest!

Grab your tickets right here if you haven’t already, and read on for our Bonnaroo Artist Spotlight!

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Though being deliberately enigmatic is part of their mystique, we believe that experimental, electronic, neo-psych artist Yves Tumor was born Sean Bowie (or perhaps Rahel Ali; even that’s not totally clear) in Miami, and grew up to our east in Knoxville, Tenn., a self-described dull and conservative upbringing which led them to music as a form of escapism as a teen, learning a variety of instruments and self-recording songs. After school they moved to the west coast, eventually landing in Los Angeles, where they became immersed in the city’s experimental scene, and began making indie music as Teams, among other early monikers. It was after meeting alt hip hop artist Mykki Blanco, and touring and eventually relocating to Europe, that the Yves Tumor project was born, fusing elements of indie rock, r&b, indie pop, lo-fi, electronica, psychedelia, soul, post-punk, nu metal, and more, cultivating a fascinating and constantly evolving sonic ethos. Yves seems to still reside in Europe, most often cited as Turin, Italy, though remains cryptic in confirming their exact whereabouts, and has recorded much of their output over the last decade aboard, formally debuting with 2015 self-released work When Man Fails You. It was 2016 LP Serpent Music which was a particularly soulful and impressionistic early introduction, however, with 2018’s Safe in the Hands of Love, their first with Warp Records, marking a shift towards more electronic and experimental. The Yves Tumor project really coalesced and broke into broader recognition with 2020’s Heaven to a Tortured Mind, a masterful work which helped Yves find widespread online buzz and amass critical acclaim, and last year’s also-excellent Praise a Lord Who Chews but Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds), both of which showcase the multifaceted artist’s incredible breadth of range and inhibited musical influence. One of the most fascinating, creative, and artistically distinct artists of our era, Yves Tumor’s Bonnaroo debut is almost certain to be one of the weekend’s most memorable sets.

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