{"title":"youbet","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"youbet_carsick","title":"Carsick","description":"\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400;\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\" data-mce-style=\"font-weight: 400;\"\u003e“Carsick” confesses a tendency to overdo things, all with a charming frankness. Yearning for the sweetness of self-control yet unable to stop the car, Nick pushes forward into the ills of excess. Their clever self-deprecation takes the edge off as they admit to indulgent and, at times, self-destructive patterns. Not without nuance, they wonder if there’s ever an end in sight while acknowledging how immoderation feeds their own self-assurance. Llobet grounds these themes in faded memories of a past road trip with a lover as they come to grips with being a better partner, shaking off frenzy, and finding restraint.\u003c\/span\u003e","brand":"youbet","offers":[{"title":"Digital","offer_id":39860316766304,"sku":"795826","price":1.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/youbet-carsick-3600px.jpg?v=1698967931"},{"product_id":"youbet_way-to-be","title":"Way To Be","description":"\u003cp\u003eNick Llobet (they\/them) was ready to throw in the towel. Llobet, who grew up in South Florida, learned to play guitar at a very young age, dabbling in everything from classical, blues, classic rock, and flamenco. They’d spent much of their early 20s searching for their voice as an artist and as an individual, as well as for a musical community. Llobet would eventually move to Brooklyn, but after three years of looking for a hopeful artistic breakthrough, they spent much of their time in seclusion, consumed by social anxiety and imposter syndrome—and they were considering abandoning songwriting completely. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOne day, while commuting through Penn Station and en route to their partner’s family home in Virginia (that would also lead to the crucial purchase of a secondhand Tascam cassette recorder), they noticed Patti Smith sitting alone, waiting for a train. The typically shy Llobet decided to approach the icon, who was, in turn, delighted to see that Llobet was carrying a guitar. At the end of their interaction, Smith offered some parting wisdom: “She wished me luck and said, ‘Practice hard, Nick.’” \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLlobet took her advice to heart, and this chance encounter kicked off a personal and artistic rebirth. They started performing as youbet, a play on their last name, and began “changing [their] vision for what a song could be.” Eventually, this journey resulted in youbet’s latest record, Way To Be. Across 12 delightfully off-kilter tunes, Llobet uses wordplay and tongue-in-cheek humor to obliquely explore dysfunctional relationships, regret, self-confidence or the lack thereof, queerness, and self-discovery. Fuzzy at the edges and filled with playful, kinetic arrangements, Way To Be is a bridge into the entrancing world of youbet. You won’t want to leave.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWay To Be arrives four years after youbet’s debut, Compare \u0026amp; Despair, a delightful gem of a record that showcases Llobet’s propensity for freewheeling whimsy and emotional intensity. In May 2019, they were inspired by a song-a-week writing group that produced Compare \u0026amp; Despair. Llobet decided to helm a second club in which contributors would upload that week’s song to a private Bandcamp. Invigorated by this small musical collaboration, the feedback, and the accountability, Llobet wrote 18 songs throughout the duration of the club (Twelve of these songs became Way To Be). \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAfter this songwriting marathon, Llobet spent 2020 focusing on instrumental guitar work and political engagement. By the summer of 2021, they were ready to revisit the Way To Be tracks. Over the next year-and-a-half, Llobet worked on the record relentlessly, refining the lyrics, recording, and arrangements from their apartment. Llobet self-produced Way To Be and describes the process as an enormous, labor-intensive undertaking that felt akin to “making a whole film.” Along the way, Llobet was joined by collaborators, including Julian Fader (Ava Luna), Adam Brisbin (Buck Meek), and Daniel Siles. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLlobet is also an abstract storyteller, preferring to structure songs around snapshots of their life. Take “Carsick,” Way To Be’s lead single, which dances around Llobet’s frustration with their own addictive personality. “I tend to do things in excess, I like to party, sometimes a little too hard,” they say, “I wish I could be more in control of myself, hence the lyric ‘Knowing when to stop\/It must be sweet.’”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMany of these songs touch on the duality of self-love and self-loathing, like on the downcast “Nurture.” But even when the subject matter is heavy, playfulness is an intrinsic part of Way To Be. Across the album, darkness is regularly softened by Llobet’s inclination towards lightheartedness. “Seeds of Evil,” a topsy-turvy study of self-criticism, plays with this contrast, pairing a lovely melody with devilish lyrics about losing perspective. “It’s choose your own adventure music,” Llobet says. “I like to keep listeners on their toes.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIndeed, the songs on Way To Be are unpredictable, and each listen offers the opportunity to dig into a new aspect of the album, from Llobet’s distinctively high voice to their complex guitar playing. “Peel,” which combines the Flamenco guitar techniques Llobet studied as a teen with a rhythm inspired by Maybelle Carter, is especially invigorating. The most labor-intensive track on the album, Llobet says that “Peel”’s lyrics—“I tried a dream\/And took it too far”—reflect their exasperated mental state during the writing process. Through its nods to Llobet’s musical education and Miami beaches, “Peel” connects their past and present. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan id=\"docs-internal-guid-0b0f8224-7fff-9acf-57e8-4e6b4aef71aa\"\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLlobet concludes, “Every song I birth is an opportunity to reinvent myself and gives me a chance to perform through a different spiritual filter. Each song is like a creature that lives within the depths of my soul, waiting to be written. I have this growing collection of spirit demons that keep me company in my creative life.”\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"youbet","offers":[{"title":"Color LP","offer_id":40297793814624,"sku":"731760","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":40297793880160,"sku":"731762","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":40297793847392,"sku":"731766","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/products\/youbet-way2be-3600x3600.jpg?v=1708724378"},{"product_id":"youbet_deny","title":"Deny","description":"\u003cp dir=\"ltr\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eNick Llobet says of the single, “Normally, youbet songs start on the nylon string, but this time I was inspired to write on the electric guitar. While driving around last spring we listened to a ton of Polvo, Autolux, and Boris, just to name a few. ‘Deny’ was written last April after we got home from supporting Mary Timony on tour. I was inspired to create a song that captured the energy of that time. In this way, touring is such a great learning experience. Getting in front of new audiences last year helped us develop a new sound. We fed off of the energy. I would say this song is an experiment- trying to explore some new stylistic terrain. A lot of the new songs we’re writing live in this world - \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e‘Deny’ is a bridge.”\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"youbet","offers":[{"title":"Digital","offer_id":41526353133664,"sku":"731826","price":1.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/files\/youbet-deny-3600px.jpg?v=1736549862"},{"product_id":"youbet_youbet","title":"youbet","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe best teachers never stop learning. They listen closely, stay curious, and let what they discover shape how they guide others. On their new self-titled album as youbet (due May 1st 2026, via Hardly Art), longtime music educators Nick Llobet (he\/they) and Micah Prussack (she\/her) proudly act as both explorer and guide, sharing three-dimensional musical sculptures so confidently and esoterically their own that they couldn’t have been released under any other name but youbet. Created in motion and shaped between long stretches of touring, the album reflects a moment of ecstatic possibility and grit. Both sharpened and expansive, youbet grows from the confines of home recording and “bedroom pop” into something sturdier, louder, and unmistakably their own.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“I myself am a constant student of life, of creating,” Llobet says. “I see people's creative anxieties because I have lived them. It’s very therapeutic because I can tell that I'm giving people strong advice based on all my failures.” Llobet relocated to New York from Denver in 2013 and forged initial connections in the local scene, while creating youbet and writing two albums, but it wasn’t until meeting Prussack in 2022 that they discovered a different level of musical connection. When the duo started playing together, they quickly realized their uniquely shared musical language and eagerness to learn from everything, connecting over a vast array of musical influence and their own practice of teaching. “Early in our friendship, Nick and I were playing guitar in the park and we decided that the Beatles were so good because they learned how to play hundreds of songs together,” Prussack says. “So we began our quest to learn 1,000 songs. Nick started compiling a massive playlist called ‘Learn Me’ filled with music that we habitually study and generate new ideas from.” \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe duo began experimenting musically, and their subsequent year of touring led to a new, more refined sound. “We had a huge opportunity for reinvention,” Prussack says. “Nick will never play the chord that you expect, and is always pushing me outside of my creative box. Their compositions are so exciting to explore, and on tour we began to reconsider and transform the kernel of each song to match our new environment.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThat depth of surprise and expansive warmth radiates from album opener “Ground Kiss”, a late-night existential query written when Llobet found themselves adjusting to living alone after the end of an 11-year relationship. “The song represents an endless search for that something and the rebuilding that goes along with trial and failure,” they say. The song unites the spectrum between clouds of plucked Big Thief-esque glow and bursts of distorted frustration. To that end, youbet demonstrates Llobet and Prussack’s ability to weave beguiling musical and lyrical expression, pushing and pulling at the resulting mesh.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDeveloping their finely tuned fusion between complex musicality and deeply felt emotion required more than hoping inspiration would strike. Instead, the process of creating youbet involved countless hours of precise engineering, meticulous craft, and gritty dedication. The duo were consistently listening, learning, and writing. But that hard work boils down into every facet of their work, including bringing a set of dumbbells on tour so they could keep active and stay disciplined. For their part, Llobet sees the resulting album as a statement of that hard work and the opening of a new chapter. “It’s the beginning of a new era for youbet,” they say. “The band started as a sort of bedroom project for myself, but it has transformed into something expansive since working with Micah. It’s like we’re running a family business.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe broiling “Undefined” draws from that personal soul-searching, a musical mosaic of life before and after a complicated breakup. Llobet first worked out the verses while waiting for a guitar student, a fitting backdrop for the song's balance of wizardly art pop experimentalism and diligent power pop hookiness. Co-producers Katie Von Schleicher and Julian Fader help round out the mix, the former adding synth glisten and the latter a drum backbone hammered into place by Prussack’s bass.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe concussive “See Thru” rushes headlong through heavy alt rock chop, moments of gentler curve, and even bubbly electronics—a track Llobet notes began when they were toying with a Debussy piano part on guitar and then stamped in the harmonics and energy of Japanese hard rock band Boris. Elsewhere, “Receive” finds Llobet carving away at generational conflict, tethering propulsive bursts of guitar reverie with raw emotional vigor in the vein of Pile. “On the verse, the bass is playing variations on the vocal melody,” Prussack says. “Throughout the album, there’s unique interplay and variation that you can only get from a lot of hard work together.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEchoing their strengths as educators, the ability to voraciously learn from a breadth of influences informs youbet—from the dizzying score to Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo to dazzling flamenco—but their ability to recognize meaning beyond signposts and find connections to emotional experience pushes everything into a topographical realism. “Having respect for the canon doesn’t mean we’re ever limited by revivalism. There’s a whole universe of musical vocabulary that we can borrow from and translate into our language,” Prussack says.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThat willingness to learn from the past while building the future is something tied deeply to the band’s New York City roots, with so many visionary artists having previously built new worlds within the city’s confines. “For years, I was too intimidated to step into the scene. It’s been such a breath of fresh air to build this new craft, this new philosophy of songwriting in a scene I respect and feel in community with,” says Llobet.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eCompelling art requires an unimaginable burst of new life, a shift from two-dimensional ideas to viscous, sinewy reality. As much as the hard work bolsters the music, it’s truly the resounding spirit of Llobet and Prussack’s relationship at the core of youbet. “Micah has brought a lot of order to my chaotic neurodivergence,” Llobet reflects. “I consider her my musical confidant. She can be cleverly critical and extremely encouraging. She's probably the most opinionated person I know. Together we build this musical balance.” What emerges is an album that doesn’t just break free of its former constraints, but reconfigures them into something sturdier: a collaborative language capable of holding contradiction, growth, and connection all at once.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"youbet","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":42567303069792,"sku":"731841","price":23.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":42567303102560,"sku":"731842","price":12.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"Digital","offer_id":42567303135328,"sku":"731846","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0110\/1882\/9920\/files\/youbet_youbet_Mockup_LP_US_2000x1417_e85537c1-25fd-4923-80bf-a892a7ed607a.jpg?v=1770832408"}],"url":"https:\/\/megamart.subpop.com\/collections\/youbet\/format-lp.oembed","provider":"Sub Pop Mega Mart","version":"1.0","type":"link"}