Glitch Princess

yeule

I went into this record totally blind, having no clue who yeule is or what I was gonna get myself into. So when My Name is Nat Ćmiel loads up and I'm inundated with a series of 'I like' statements - some endearing, others sordid - I'm immediately intrigued. Ill at ease, but intrigued. The more I listen to this album though, I realize that this is actually a brilliant way to summarize the record. Statements like "I like pretty textures in sound... I like making my own worlds... [and] I like sweet things," foreshadow a unique, ambient, futuristic, and sometimes colourful listening experience. The more troubling lines on this introduction, however, reveal a darker, more destructive side to yeule, which only becomes more concerning the further you get into the record. References to body dysmorphia and eating disorders appear frequently, perhaps most notably on Perfect Blue. There is an alarming number of self-harm references and catastrophizing (might not be the correct word) as well: checking one's symptoms online, envisioning getting hit by a train, drug addiction, and lots of physical scarring. And lastly, the intro hints at our artist having a callous nature, a theme that is delved into a little more on Too Dead Inside. To add another layer onto all that, all these flaws are presented in this super artificial manner, as if yeule no longer wants to be - or sees herself as - human. Alive. When you join the lyrical themes with the musical aesthetics I mentioned earlier, you have quite the dichotomous pairing. And you know I love that.

The dichotomy is interesting, but not enough for me to really get behind this record. The first real song, Electric, has some nice ambient textures, and also has some exhilarating explosions coupled with some tuned vocal wails that pierce right through your body. Sadly though, the softer vocals are really not all that compelling, an issue I'm having with many other songs here. In fact, the only track where I really enjoyed yeule's more natural sounding voice was on Eyes. Very soothing, great melody, and in addition to that, this track is easily the most robust in terms of composition. The chord progression is astounding, and the industrial tinged ending was an unlikely but perfect climax. Fragments was another song I enjoyed that is quite a noisy, mostly instrumental journey and Bites on My Neck had some cool chiptune synth timbres as well as some odd, bitcrushed screams. The only other track I kind of liked was the closer (that is if we are not counting the four and a half hour ambient piece that is really just a bonus), although with this track, I felt like it was really going somewhere only to be cut off rather abruptly before it could reach its intended destination.

In a word, I found this record to be interesting, but there wasn't really enough - especially on the lyric front - to keep me invested all throughout. At the beginning, I felt like we were introduced to a more rounded... artist? Character? I saw that elegance and beauty in some of the compositions and production and I guess I was just hoping to see more of that reflected in the lyrics from time to time. I actually had to stop reading into them because it was becoming way too drab and repetitive. The experience was a unique one though, and yeule certainly made an impression. They may be an artist I'll have to keep tabs on in the future to see how this artist evolves.