Yes We Mystic 
Trust Fall 

With steady hands and racing hearts, Yes We Mystic (RIP) plunge into the unknown.

After a decade together, Winnipeg band Yes We Mystic has called it quits. Trust Fall, their third album, is the band’s parting gift.

But this is Yes We Mystic we’re talking about – the same band who, for their second album, Ten Seated Figures, cast an alternate version of themselves to participate in interviews, music videos, and a live performance. So Trust Fall wasn’t the only way Yes We Mystic said goodbye. In the months leading up to the release of their final album in late October, Yes We Mystic set up the interactive Trust Fall Hotline (1 (877) 347-5231) “for those willing to see what happens,” they made a concert film that documented the last time they performed together, and hosted a screening for it (where they also showed music videos from across their career) in their beloved hometown. 

On Trust Fall, Yes We Mystic (in their final form, they are Adam Fuhr, founder of the label and studio House of Wonders, Jensen Fridfinnson, Keegan Steele, Jodi Plenert, and Jordon Ottenson), say goodbye in the same way they welcomed us into their world: with loud, mighty bellows of art-rock and feelings. When I reviewed the band’s debut LP Forgiver for Exclaim!, I called it “an utterly enthralling listen,” and six years later, Yes We Mystic is still enthralling. The band wields their instruments (synths, strings, guitars, percussion, and more) in ways that feel boundless. Their energy has never wavered, but on Trust Fall, Yes We Mystic is more urgent and assured than ever. The band members themselves see this group of songs as their strongest material to date. 

In many ways, Yes We Mystic’s powerful sound has always mirrored the electrifying rush of falling into the unfamiliar –- the very heart of Trust Fall and the exact circumstance the band is now in. Perhaps Yes We Mystic have foretold their end since the beginning. Or maybe they’ve just always known that anything that has a beginning also has an end. At the start of the album, Fuhr is trepidatious and sings, “I’m afraid of what waits for me,” and by its halfway point, on highlight “Forebear,” he asks a question that often haunts those who live on the cusp of change: “Oh my God, what if love is not enough?” But by Trust Fall’s grand conclusion, “Sun Room,” Yes We Mystic seemingly embrace change, and we hear the words from Fuhr that we’ve been waiting for: “I am ready.”

With steady hands and racing hearts, Yes We Mystic plunge into the unknown.