YAEJI Schallplatten & CDs

Review: Yaeji's latest offering is a perfect tightrope walk between dreamy pop, DIY house and plenty of the Korean American artists own unique sound designs. It is starkly emotional and demonstrates a lightness of melodic touch that is beautiful to experience. Introverted and perfectly poised for self reflection, the album is an essential audio partner for these strange and unsettling times in which we live. There are darker moments of experimentation, but always balanced with improve jazz or lighter moments that lifts the mood. It's perfectly time during an era when we can't be back in clubs, and is her strongest work by far.

Review: Known as one of house music's contemporary darlings, Yaeji returns to XL Recordings with a concept album certain to prove her worth as an artist well beyond hip, 4x4 vocal bangers. With A Hammer is an album with full cross-continental appeal, hearing Yaeji channel her regional affinities with Seoul, London and New York into a righteously angry comeback. Across it, Yaeji is accompanied by her metaphorical hammer friend - Hammer Lee - whom she uses proudly to smash the many heterodox expectations foisted on her and her community, and which have conspired to keep her down in the past. With signature bilingual vocals and an updated slick sound, the album also brings together tunes made with K Wata, Enayet, Nourished by Time, and Loraine James.

Review: We are still being treated to superb albums that were written during the Coronavirus pandemic lockdowns and this is one of them. It took shape across a two-year period in New York, Seoul, and London and finds the highly rated Yaeji looking closely at her relationship with anger. In something of a shift away from the sound of previous work, she brings in rock and hip-hop elements as well as her signature house style. The lyrics in English and Korean are dark and self-reflective, while the artist also employs live instrumentation for the first time. Guests include K Wata and Enayet, plus vocals from London's Loraine James and Baltimore's Nourished by Time.

Review: Two years on from the release of her acclaimed mixtape-style full length debut, What We Draw, Kathy Yaeji Lee returns to XL Recordings with her debut studio album With a Hammer. Conceived (lyrically at least) as an examination of the singer-songwriter-producer's relationship with anger, the album sees Lee expand on her house/hyper-pop-influenced trademark sound via nods to trip-hop, rock, drum & bass and more, with the addition of - for the first time in her career - live instrumentation. Of course, amongst the musical tweaks and collaborations (Lorraine James, Nourished By Time, K Wata and Enganet all feature), there are still plenty of nods to her pop-leaning productions of old, not least bi-lingual vocals (she often sings in Korean as well as English) and a sense of sonic style that has always been one of the aural hallmarks of Lee's work.