‘With a Hammer’ is the debut album from Yaeji, following on from her 2020 mixtape ‘What We Drew 우리가 그려왔던’. It finds the DJ, producer and singer in a period of creative rage, with tracks that snarl, blip and penetrate. The results are sometimes arresting and sometimes a bit meh, but they all pave the way for late night dirty dancing in Brooklyn.
Yaeji has previously been described as a house artist but this album spans many areas of electronica, from the drum ‘n’ bass-infused Fever, a sort of ethereal siren voyage, to the excellent and thoughtful toe tapper For Granted.
The lyrics to this latter track, which are sung in both Korean and English, are shot through with a malleable sort of simplicity: “When I think about it / I don’t even know / How it got to be this way / How it got to be this good.”
These are thought-provoking phrases that leave loads of space for transposing one's own story on the song, despite sounding like they are sung by a child.
The affectedly girly singing over big electro beats (see also: Ready or Not and Pass Me By) recalls another artist in Grimes. Both she and Yaeji are producing a distinctive combination of music that is highly intellectual and grown-up alongside this rather self-effacing vocal style. Kate Bush frequently employed it, too, diminishing some of her best work in the process, and frequently on this album it is off-putting and creepy.
It’s not on every single song—the title track instead sees Yaeji uttering straight spoken word over industrial beats a la Depeche Mode, and it is excellent. But it courses through the rest of the album, and that's a shame because it’s otherwise top notch. Put the baby voice in the corner.
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