Astro-glide into the weekend with yeule's latest release, "Pretty Bones," and her mix of aquatic, spacey electronica.
London-via-Singapore producer Nat Ćmiel, a.k.a. yeule, has been putting East and Southeast Asian post-pop on the map since her 2017 EP Coma. But her musical world is far more nomadic, not to mention geographically abstract—bouncing between heady club underworlds, orchestral kawaii dreamlands, and science-fantasy dystopias. (The name yeule was inspired by Final Fantasy XIII-2.) yeule’s latest release, “Pretty Bones,” is her first since signing to eclectic Brooklyn label Bayonet Records. Her signature whispery vocals are layered over intricate beats crafted on a keyboard and a mixing app, and accompanied by an equally cinematic video—one not recommended for sufferers of trypophobia. Macro shots of raw seafood and corrupted samples of visual ASMR play on themes of living, decaying, and our fabricated digital selves.
To celebrate the release, yeule made Document a playlist of tracks that inform her world. It includes simmering ambient works by Aphex Twin and Jon Hopkins, and experimental electronica from SOPHIE, Yves Tumor, and IC3PEAK. The culmination is an upbeat Grimes-featuring cut from South Korean girl group LOOΠΔ yyxy, which actually fits yeule’s description of the playlist perfectly: “ever find urself stuck in a massive queue waiting to get a tiny cracked piece of holographic seashell from your local mermaid? this is the perfect playlist for u. i don’t know if venus has extra hot cheetos but i cut up my kiwi in little cubes instead of longwise slices.”
