Yikii - Don't Cry Little Ghost
YIKII RELEASES SURREAL, SPINE-TINGLING ‘DON’T CRY LITTLE GHOST’
China’s dark fairytale pop artist Yikii, who, like Billie Eilish, represents a neoteric wave of music benders, released a new album just before Christmas, entitled Don’t Cry Little Ghost, via Hangzhou’s FunctionLab label. Along with her own music, Yikii also sings with the Japanese/Chinese group Anemone.
Yikii
Simultaneously magical and eerie, Yikii’s sound blends elements of chamber pop, experimental club music, K-pop, and art-pop into musical concoctions both elegantly surreal and delicately perfumed. At times almost random and contradictory on the surface, her music reveals nuances of deep anthropomorphic parameters, a kind of barbed dreadful essence akin to the sad desolation of Marilyn Monroe’s life.
As on previous releases, on Don’t Cry Little Ghost, Yikii hooked up with New York-based artist Dasychira, aka Adrian Martens, originally from South Africa. The two artists met via Facebook and began corresponding, sending each other demos, song ideas, and empathetic gifts.
Encompassing 10-tracks, Don’t Cry Little Ghost opens with “Frost Jelly Cake,” exuding layers of jarring strident colors, thumping drums, and exploratory high-pitched tones, all crowned by Yikii’s fragile sylph-like voice.
Entry points on the album include “Lilac Butterfly Soup,” riding spine-chilling ominous tones reminiscent of the inner workings of Caligula’s mind, luminous with the dust of madness. Lambent sounds of wonder and distrust infuse the sing-song lyrics with a cutting sense of imminence.
“Sinking into the clear water without dreams / The spine softens, black body fluid is poured into the veins / The shadow of Howling touches the fear of injury / Light green strip of sorrow of reason / At the end of everything there is disaster that cannot be turned back / Where has the real world gone?”
“Quietly Hiding In The Rain” juxtaposes swirling oscillating intonations over spooky club music pulsations.
The video for “Lilac Butterfly Soup,” produced and directed by Yikii and Dasychira, with camera work by Yikii’s mother, depicts Yikii dressed as a butterfly flitting through a lilac-colored landscape, as if searching a hallucinogenic dream for ghosts.
Commenting on the video, Yikii says, “My mother and I went to the park on a very cold fall day to shoot a video. We shot more than 100 videos and only a few could be used. After that, I drew a lot of small illustrations and made subtitle pictures. I sent the materials to Dasychira one by one. She also drew very lovely and delicate small illustrations and animated them. Then she began to cast magic on all the material, and in a lilac flash, the magic began to materialize. Day and night came and went, and she tried to sing the mantra — and in the end, all in the eyes it was like restore a beautiful dream.”
“Self-Torture” amalgamates a stark industrial rhythm with oozing, whooshing currents of grating hues traveling on lullaby-like vocals delivering Promethean lyrics: “All that is left / This pair of shells / It can only be used to feel pain / Pain to tremble / Stripped from me at night / Heavy fog / Lying in the snow / Body soaked in cold despair / But i can't die yet.”
“Quietly Hiding In The Rain” juxtaposes swirling oscillating intonations over spooky club music pulsations. The combination goes beyond disconcerting and enters the realm of shrilly alarming. “Lloigor” conjures up sonic visions of Antonio Banderas entering the lair of the Mother of the Wendol in The 13th Warrior, mirroring bizarre, rather disturbing wicked washes of color.
The final two tracks are Dasychira’s remixes of “Frost Jelly Cake” and “Lilac Butterfly Soup.,” infusing the songs with kaleidoscopic bubblegum-pop textures and percolating glittering sparkles.
On Don’t Cry Little Ghost, Yikii fuses chilling cutesy-pie music with Warhol-like ambiance, all crowned by her elfin voice and uncanny lyrics. The result is strangely hypnotic, quiver-inducing, and full of palpable dark resolves.
