Oh Sees mastermind John Dwyer is stepping into his synth-heavy solo guise Damaged Bug to pay tribute to one of his musical heroes. Bug On Yonkers is Dwyer’s covers collection spotlighting the Minnesota garage-psych icon Michael Yonkers, who helped to pioneer noise and drone guitar in the ’60s. His work has been reissued by labels like De Stijl, Drag City, and Sub Pop and widely praised by disciples like the Black Lips and the Blind Shake, with whom Yonkers has collaborated on a series of records a decade ago.

Dwyer’s discography obviously fits nicely into that lineage. As he writes at The Talkhouse, Yonkers was a formative influence for him. Upon first hearing Yonkers’ cult classic Microminiature Love, “I thought, I want to be playing music immediately. I want to write like this, I want to perform like this, I want to express like this man. Inspiration poured right into my veins through my earholes.” Dwyer continues, “It’s hard to explain, but thats what Michael Yonkers’s music conjures in me. He reminds me of young love and sadness. He sings about human destructiveness and war mongering governments, of drugs and hope. Of life.”

After running into some writer’s block while working on an upcoming Damaged Bug album, Dwyer decided to get his creative juices flowing by covering an album’s worth of Yonkers’ tunes. The resulting collection, Bug On Yonkers, comprises nine fried rock ‘n’ roll tracks including lead single “I Tried,” originally recorded by Yonkers’ early garage band Michael And The Mumbles. Hear Dwyer’s cover and the original below.

Bug On Yonkers is out 4/24 on Castle Face.