Thursday 16 August 2018

🐣 YEULE — POCKY BOY

Firstly those synths, warped and wild, wrap the track in wreathes of rolling fog, a heavysoft sound that ushers you into this sunken world. Grainy and cutting, like a rain of razor wire, this is the cloud on which you sit throughout the song, the vantage point for witnessing yourself like an out-of-body experience. 'Pocky Boy' is all about this atmosphere, tender but cutting, harsh.

The voice of yeule adds to this sense of sea-mist, this mind miasma, the curdling of nebulous thoughts that end up as "voices in my... head." Her vocal reverbs into itself, a series of cyclical ruminations, sheaves of a diary ripped out scratching together dusty and fragmenting into a distant breeze, incoming.

Ultimately though there is this violent ambience, this scathing wall of grey noise punctuated by the pastel of those synths (struck by their stumbling rhythm, their picking-up-the-pieces irregularity, the head-in-hands voidsome chords of it), but it is given motion by the thump of a meaty house kick: the simple secret to continuing with life. The easter egg of a gun cocking.

And yeule's own voice, looped, echoes itself, a frenzy of movement—by the end, we return to those chords by themselves, ready to begin again; foreboding instead of finality.


  • πŸ”” So the 'Pocky Boy' video is above, of course, and features instant messaging, some urban exploration and a little bit of pocky play, too. Directed by friend-of-the-artist Rabbit Sashimi (actually a thing; though we cannot find a jot of a soul online), it is described by the Singapore-and-London-based yeule as follows:

    "At the dawn of the new age, civilization has been wiped out by an alien race that can shape-shift into the humans that used to walk the earth centuries before. The aliens attempt to grasp the differences of gender and form that humans beings had, even though they do not know the difference because of their nature as non-binary beings."

  • πŸ”” This track was actually released back in April via Zoom Lens, so you may straightaway download 'Pocky Boy' here, should you wish to do so.
  • πŸ”” Aaand... yeule will be playing her first LA show on 23rd August, 7:30pm - 11pm, as part of Zoom Lens-curated night Malform. The location of this show is TBA.


πŸ“ 
yeule Internet Presence ☟
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Wednesday 15 August 2018

🐣 DRONA — FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS

"I moved to America for university on a scholarship and that's when I encountered a stark change in culture," says Indian musicmaker, Drona. The Cornell student tells the story of those cultural differences in 'First World Problems', a track that bumps with bass and blooms of hazy, heralding synth, with clacking percussion keeping delicious, swaying time.

The song makes use of not busying up all the space with instrumental, allowing the vocals room to impact. And it is all about the vocals in Drona's outsider observations of an Ivy Leaguer's life—all wrapped up in a playful, upbeat slice of sound.

These observations come mainly in the form of crushing, eponymous problems: "Truffles on pizza / but delivery is just not on time / pills in Ibiza / but the traffic is a bit of a crime." And these little vignettes are contrasted with Drona's own experience, namely the pre-chorus line, "I guess I can't remember / when I had / so much to have," highlighting the differences between a first world problem and, well, a real world problem; the trauma of just having too much stuff to begin with.


  • πŸ”” 'First World Problems' is taken from Drona's upcoming EP, The Third World Season. "It talks about the whole arc of being in India to coming to America and then finding "First World Problems" after I came here," he explained to us. Feel free to download 'First World Season' here via your fav service.


πŸ“ 
Drona Internet Presence ☟
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