Initially breaking by way of on a crest of daring, euphoric dance music – the fogged-glasses deep home banger ‘Raingurl’ and a nu-disco infused tackle Drake’s ‘Passionfruit’ – Yaeji took a extra introspective flip when it got here to 2020’s mixtape ‘What We Drew 우리가 그려왔던’. Although it nonetheless pulled closely from the regular stomp of a dry-ice laden dancefloor, it paired its chilly drum and bass beats and pulses of garagey Korg organ with one thing extra drifting and exploratory.
After bottling up pure pleasure together with her earlier releases – 2017’s ‘Yaeji’ and ‘EP2’ – the Korean-American artist’s XL debut felt like a peeling again of the layers, exposing the darkness effervescent proper beneath the floor. Like dance-pop titan Robyn (who Yaeji expertly remixed again in 2019) she appeared to grasp that sheer escapism usually comes hand in hand with fleeing from one thing shadowy and corrosive.
Whereas this uneasiness beforehand manifested within the type of eclectic slower-tempo beats – the cavernously sluggish ‘These Days 요즘’ with its refined licks of experimental jazz, or ‘Waking Up Down’s saccharine chill – debut album ’With A Hammer’ opens with ‘Submerge FM’s flutter of orchestral flutes, earlier than shortly revving up right into a gently simmering rage. “I used to be so pissed off, I believed I couldn’t maintain it collectively,” she sings on the title-track. In direction of the second half of the document, Yaeji additionally opens her arms to collaborators, with NYC producers Okay Wata and Enayet, Dry Cleansing reworker Nourished by Time, and UK dance producer Loraine James that includes at varied factors earlier than the glacial nearer ‘Be Alone In This’ isolates her as soon as extra.
‘With A Hammer’ often flits between imprecise glints of hope and resigned nihilism. “There are occasions whenever you’re glad, instances whenever you’re mad, that’s how it’s,” Yaeji shrugs on ‘I’ll Bear in mind For Me, I’ll Bear in mind For You’ – the document’s sparse, brass-laden centrepiece. “It’s straightforward to get damage, however I’ll write it down for me,” she sings, slipping seamlessly from Korean to English halfway by way of the road. On ‘For Granted’ you possibly can virtually hear the brain-cogs gathering steam and spinning anxiously – “Am I saying thanks / Am I having fun with it too / Am I / Taking it as a right,” Yaeji wonders, as hiccuping vocal loops steadily construct upon one another. When all of it lastly comes crashing down, in wave upon wave of rolling drum and bass, it seems like relieving strain.
From the Pixies-esque grunge guitars and deadpan rap verses of ‘Fever’ to the haunting, Peter and the Wolf-style woodwind that reoccurs all through, ‘With A Hammer’ shares the eclectic sensibilities of its predecessor, however hones it into one thing extra subtly cohesive. Wielding her big mallet like a kitschy comic-book hero and utilizing it to tame her anger as glassy washes of synthesiser sometimes burble and stutter, this couldn’t be farther from the speedy sugar-rush of Yaeji’s earliest hits. Thorny and tangled, that is dance music for drifting dwelling from the membership on abandoned pavements; the second of reflection after the euphoria fades.
Particulars
- Launch date: April 7
- Report label: XL Recordings
