Youngbloods welcomes back Brooklyn-based songwriter, producer, and guitarist Stu Pender for his newest full-length effort, Being With. Rooted in vulnerability and reinventiveness, Pender departs from his previous canon of stringed instrumental works to explore identity, homecoming, and transformation through placing his own voice front and center in his creative process.

Pender, originally from Chicago, has spent the last decade shaping a career as a studio and touring musician, accumulating credits with contemporaries Yoh, Carrtoons, Topaz Jones, Carlos Niño and Laraaji. As a touring musician, he has most recently supported Allison Ponthier, Photay, and Elijah Wolf across New York institutions including MoMA PS1, The United Nations, and The Beacon Theatre. His preceding record, Stillness in Motion, was heralded by tastemakers at KCRW, KEXP, The Lot Radio, and NTS Radio, celebrated for its sense of intimacy and biophony across a blend of ethereal guitar-led atmospheres, traditional folk stylings, and experimental constructions.

Whereas Pender’s previous work found structure in the liminal moments of his busy, and often unpredictable life as a touring guitarist, Being With takes form searching for rediscovery in the unknown. Narratively, the album’s genesis follows one of the final rehearsals for Pender’s longstanding hip/hop and jazz collective, Poetic Thrust, before the group began an indefinite hiatus. Searching for a continuation of the group’s creative spirit, Pender redirected his output toward charting themes of definition and self-trust in his songwriting.

Being With was primarily recorded between Pender’s home studio in Brooklyn and Chicago from 2021 through 2024. The album utilizes some amorphic, abstract demos and sketches from previous projects, retooling them through more traditional songwriting methodologies and primarily incorporating Pender’s trials as a lead vocalist - a rarely touched upon element within his discography. In Pender’s words:

“Being With navigates the process of letting go, and learning to choose myself. These songs came from honesty, vulnerability, and just trying things out.. Simply being with the changes that come with getting a bit older, entering my thirties. Riding the waves harmoniously. Rediscovering what feels right, and how to move forward in this world. In a process of being with and releasing. Contractions & expansions of this sense of self, and a permeability between waking life and our dreams. And giving myself permission to sing more”

The result is an emotionally pure collection of songs illuminated in the bokeh of Pender’s wandering mind and open spirit; a body of work as welcoming as it is warm - deeply personal while leaving the front door open. “Feels Like,” the album’s overture, sets the table by highlighting Pender’s pension for crafting lush soundscapes, joining “Metamorphosis” and “Flora” in streaking the record with abstract colors, gentle strings and divine mantras. These emotional touchpoints are punctuated, manipulated, and finessed through multiple lenses, or, “riding the waves” as Pender might refer to his brand of songwriting. “Feet Flurrying” and “Warmest Tones” frame a more intimate relationship between man and guitar, whereas works like “Rewind” and “Flow On” find Being With’s peaks and valleys through a synthesis of styles spanning electronica, UK garage, indie rock, and experimental country. Likening the album’s sound to a disparate collection of artists like Four Tet, Dougie Poole, The Eels, Prefuse 73, or Helado Negro would all all prove to be apt constellations within Pender’s celestial tapestry. Being With masterfully blends a swath of sounds, feelings, and ambitions into one unified snapshot of finding your footing amidst life’s winding path. Or, perhaps best summarized in the album’s closing remarks:

“​​Take your time, kid
One foot after the other
Moving slowly
Take your time well
Quite awhile longer
Quite awhile longer
Slow it down”