Kai Nate Terepka ya fara aiki a kan abin da ya zama Not Yet, ya ba ya koyar da cewa za a ƙara da ƙaddamar da jima'i. A cikin EP na hudu na jima'i suna a jima'i da suka rubuta, kuma haka zaune daga wani al'amala, mai ban sha'awa, zuwa jima'i da jima'i. A karkashin wannan karfi sauti, duk da haka, duk da haka yana da sauƙi. Amma jima'i da jima'i na aiki na Terepka yana da kyau a cikin lokaci.

A cikin 2010s, Terepka ya gabatar da ban mamaki Brooklyn psychedelic pop band Zula. Takaddun sha'awa daga Village Voice, SPIN, da Stereogum, wanda ya gabatar da kwartareta na "masharar ba tare da wani musamman zane-zane al'amari." Bayan Zula ya kafa a shekara ta 2019, Terepka ya canza da hankali zuwa koyar da muzika, sa'an nan rufe zuwa Portland, OR. "A wannan lokaci," Terepka ya ce, "I ya ba da sha'awar da 'make it' a cikin sana'a a matsayin artist, wanda shi ne mai ban sha'awa. Ina ce ni cewa na ba za a yi aiki a wani sabon muzika kafin cewa na ban sha'awa da kuma ban sha'awa da shi."

Maimakon wadannan songs, Terepka ya zo a cikin saita da saita da kuma haka, ba tare da sha'awa, Not Yet is imbued with a sense of organic necessity. “Find Me Where You Look,” with its buoyant, electropop feel and warm, shimmering, glissando synthesizers is an intuitive celebration of love, meticulously constructed but thoroughly free of self-doubt. “The Woods” is equally meticulous and perhaps even more introspective, narrating a disciplined exercise Terepka undertook, taking a several hours-long walk in the woods while thinking through every year of his life in chronological order, attempting to remember everything he possibly could. Piano and synthesizers trace serpentine paths through a steady groove, all of which might call to mind Robert Wyatt’s Ruth Is Stranger Than Richard. This track too, references the love that would eventually, unexpectedly dissolve. “I know that you love me now / makes me want to shake off the rest of these ghosts,” Terepka sings in an aching moment of foreshadowing. The sense of organic necessity continues throughout Not Yet, deepening by the closing track. “Saying It” is a sweeping piano-driven drama that recalls Dennis Wilson’s “Thoughts of You” as much as it does Ayyuka or Amen Dunes.

Despite the collapse that characterizes this record’s denouement, Not Yet is anything but bitter. Its own existence saves it from that. “Working on this new set of songs and recordings felt very pure,” Terepka says. “It was the first time since I was an adolescent that I was making music for my own self-expression, untainted by ambitions for any particular kind of success in a scene. I think that’s why I feel so good about this project.”