Back before Grimes was dating Elon Musk, she was crafting highly experimental, creepily cutesie music on records like Geidi Primes and Halfaxa, using her wafer thin, piercing vocal to send shivers down her listeners’ spines.
The latest release on Genome 6.66mbp, Yikii’s Flower’s Grave, Flower Tomb, recalls the same sense of twisted beauty. First of all, Yikii herself dresses in what she terms as “anime-style” clothes. “I become nervous on stage very easily, but I can involve the audience more in the world of my music by dressing up,” she tells us.
Elsewhere, reference the song and album names. Titles like ‘Rotten Flowers’ and ‘Toxic Clouds In Dreamland’ tease the imagination. “In a manner of speaking, I like how fresh it feels when I combine cute and dark elements.”
For the cover art on Flower’s Grave, Flower Tomb, Yikii teamed up with Genome 6.66mbp co-founder Tavi Lee. Butterflies and flowers sit atop a bed of disconcerting reds and pinks and grays. The cover is an adaptation of the artwork on a previous album of Yikii’s: nihil∞butterfly.
‘Flower’s Grave, Flower Tomb’ album artwork
On the music itself, Yikii combines the heady bass sounds that have come to define much of the industrial, underground club scene in the Shanghai area with found sounds and, most interestingly, her high-pitched, spine-tingling vocal. While elements of the music are recognizable, the finished product sounds unique, horrfiying and intriguing all at once.
“Actually, while I was creating this album, I tried not to listen to any other artists,” Yikii says of the writing process for Flower’s Grave, Flower Tomb. “Every time I create a song, there will be pictures and stories in my mind, as if I am entering another world, trying to communicate the atmosphere and color of another world.”
[Cover image courtesy of Yikii]
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