[Critique] “With a Hammer”, Yaeji

With her hammer, Yaeji, star of the New York underground electronic scene, intends to smash the walls of the prison (it’s an image) in which she believes she was locked up in her youth. The composer of Korean origins felt during the pandemic the urgency to free herself from her traumas by composing songs rather than dance floor fireworks, these two concepts not being mutually exclusive, as she demonstrates with great finesse. on this first album. The soft, almost childish voice carries lyrics that are much less innocent than they seem when they are set against such dazzling rhythms: between hyperpop, drum&bass (For Granted), electro (Overwhelmed, Done (Let’s Get It) and tech (Happy) and more contemplative grooves (1 Thing to Smash, collaboration with the British composer Loraine James), Yaeji delivers a complex, sinuous and inspired pop, which reveals itself little by little with each new listening. To be discovered at the Corona theater on May 16.

Click here for an excerpt.

With a Hammer

★★★ 1/2

Pop

Yaeji, XL Recordings

To see in video


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