Yaeji – With A Hammer

Few artists are truly smashing genre boundaries quite like Yaeji – and with her debut album she’s doing that smashing with a hammer. Since 2017 Yaeji has been showing off her production prowess, fine-tuning a perfect blend of unorthodox sound design with club-ready rhythms, sprinkled with her signature soft crooning vocals. Tracks like ‘Raingurl’, her cover of Drake’s ‘Passionfruit’ and an assortment of slick collaborations and remixes with the likes of Dua Lipa and Charli XCX cemented her as a true powerhouse of an artist. Debut album ‘With A Hammer’ is sheer colourful brilliance, with Yaeji once again reinventing herself, and redefining what electronic music can be. 

The title track on this record is curated chaos, flecks of the late SOPHIE audible in the percussion choices, Yaeji’s vocals reserved and oozing allure. Instrumentally, ‘With A Hammer’ has jagged edges, a fine thread of pop shimmer carefully woven through the track listing. ‘Done (Let’s Get It)’ boasts swirling synthesisers, the sound design nostalgic to the 90s IDM movement, yet it also maintains a contemporary club feel. Despite the moodier club moments ‘With A Hammer’ holds an aura of complete fun, Yaeji’s joy of experimentation shining through effortlessly on the project. The smattering of features on the album are tasteful and self-assured, most notably Enayet’s contribution to the ridiculously driving ‘Michin’ being a very much welcomed one. 

Closing with granular opus ‘Be Alone In This’, ‘With A Hammer’ is an exceptional debut album for Yaeji, her most cohesive and daring body of work to date. She has developed her own world over the last few years, this record feeling like the grand opening; the musical renegade uses this sonic landscape to release feelings of sorrow and doubt and anger, culminating in a truly vivid and innovative record. 

8/10

Words: James Mellen

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