Pitchfork Yaeji What We Drew 乐评& 翻译

Yaeji’s first full-length mixtape is a subtle, more insular turn for the producer. It plays like a self-issued challenge to strip away the fluorescence, to find what’s underneath pop catharsis.

Yaeji的第一张全长混音带对制作人来说是一个微妙的、更加孤立的转变。它就像一个自发的挑战，剥去荧光，找到流行宣泄之下的东西。

To grow up in the Asian-American experience and still become an artist is an act of rebellion; it’s a demand to tell your own story despite society deeming you interchangeable and voiceless. It’s a dismissal of the “model minority” stereotype—a patronizing label conferred upon your people for your supposed diligence and submission—and a refusal to reckon with that reduction. To be an Asian American artist also requires an inherent concession: You know that even if you attempt to address the universals in the human experience, your face will always be part of the discussion. Yaeji, a bilingual Korean American producer living in Brooklyn, could not have known that her first full-length mixtape would be released into explosive social frictions, a spate of violence against Asian Americans that would prove the “model” myth a hollow gesture. And yet her music arrives as an openhearted counterpoint, making space for both anxiety and love, offering a timely reminder of the power in subverting expectations of others and appreciating community—the kind you’re born into and the kind you built yourself.

在亚裔美国人的经历中成长起来并成为一名艺术家是一种反叛的行为；这是一种要求，尽管社会认为你是可替换的，没有声音，但你还是要讲述自己的故事。这是对 "模范少数民族 "这一刻板印象的否定--这是一个赋予你们这些人所谓的勤奋和顺从的光荣标签--以及拒绝考虑这种削减。作为一个亚裔美国艺术家，也需要一个固有的让步： 你知道，即使你试图解决人类经验中的普遍性问题，你的脸也将永远是讨论的一部分。

yaeji是一位居住在布鲁克林的韩裔美国人，她不可能知道她的第一张完整的混音带会在爆炸性的社会摩擦中发行，以及一连串针对亚裔美国人的暴力事件，这将证明 "模式 "的神话是一个空洞的姿态。然而，她的音乐作为一个开放的对立面出现了，为焦虑和爱提供了空间，及时提醒人们颠覆对他人的期望和欣赏社区的力量--你出生在其中的那种，以及你自己建立的那种。

In her short, already thrilling career as a producer, singer, and rapper, Yaeji has toyed with ideas of communication and opacity: She initially sang in Korean instead of English to obscure her lyrics, and still plays the languages like instruments with different timbres and intonations. Her warm, sparkling beats usually nod to deep house, though she often adds a glaze of icy trap languor; when she covered pop hits by Drake and Robyn, she tempered the mania with misty distortion and falsetto chirps. Across her two EPs for Godmode records, Yaeji’s songs were effortlessly chill yet reliably euphoric. Her bass drops and feathery vocals have had such nimble balance and satisfying velocity, they’ve felt purifying as only the best dance music can: between “raingurl,” “drink i’m sippin on,” and that humid cover of “passionfruit,” her 2017 EP2 remains a stalwart DJ cheat code. Even teetotalers know: Any night out is instantly more seductive upon hearing Yaeji murmur, “Mother Russia in my cup.”

在她作为制作人、歌手和说唱歌手的短暂而激动人心的职业生涯中，Yaeji 玩弄了交流和不透明的想法：她最初用韩语而不是英语唱歌以掩盖她的歌词，并且仍然像使用不同音色的乐器一样演奏语言和语调。她温暖、闪亮的节拍通常让人联想到 deep house，尽管她经常添加一层冰冷的 trap 慵懒；当她翻唱 Drake 和 Robyn 的流行歌曲时，她用朦胧的失真和假声的唧唧声缓和了这种狂热。在她为 Godmode 唱片制作的两张 EP 中，Yaeji 的歌曲既轻松又令人愉悦。她的低音和羽毛般的声音具有如此灵活的平衡和令人满意的速度，他们感觉只有最好的舞曲才能净化：在“raingurl”、“drink i'm sippin on”和“passionfruit”的潮湿封面之间， ” 她的 2017 EP2 仍然是一个坚定的 DJ 作弊代码。就连滴酒不沾的人都知道：听到 Yaeji 喃喃自语“Mother Russia in my cup.”，任何夜晚都会立刻变得更加诱人。

For What We Drew, Yaeji’s first release on the venerable UK label XL, the 26-year-old producer could have easily shipped out a full crate of stylish, bacchanal floor-fillers without breaking a sweat. Instead, What We Drew plays like a self-issued challenge to strip away the fluorescence, to find what’s underneath pop catharsis. As a result, it’s subtler yet more resonant, because its peaks have deeper valleys to climb back from; in the tradition of Frankie Knuckles, Sylvester, and other artists who used bright electronic music as conduits of pain, here Yaeji offers smaller, darker meditations on the paralysis of anxiety and the loneliness inside the revelry.

对于 What We Drew，Yaeji 在久负盛名的英国品牌 XL 上的首张专辑，这位 26 岁的制作人本可以毫不费力地运出一整箱时尚、狂欢的地板填充物。相反，What We Drew 就像是一个自我发起的挑战，要去除荧光，找出流行宣泄背后的东西。结果，它更微妙但更共鸣，因为它的山峰有更深的山谷可供攀登；按照 Frankie Knuckles、Sylvester 和其他使用明亮的电子音乐作为痛苦管道的艺术家的传统，Yaeji 在这里提供了对焦虑麻痹和狂欢中的孤独的更小、更黑暗的冥想。

“Waking Up Down,” the tape’s first single, is the soft landing from Yaeji’s past. In a sleight-of-hand, it deploys several Yaeji staples immediately: a rippling, entrancing synth intro; a quick and satiating bass drop; lyrics so laid-back they slouch. But there is friction, too: As she flatly sings an index of minor daily achievements—“I got waking up down/I got cooking down/I got making a list and checking down”—her production feels crooked. Her voice clashes with the synths in dissonant patches; the drums feel pushy, the bass skittish. Soon the chorus, in Korean, confesses how much is truly awry: “It’s not easy/There’s no such thing as easy/If I’m lazy/They all say it’s my fault,” she sings more somberly. Her earlier feats weren’t brags so much as self-affirmations of her ability to function, and that insistently repeated “down” is a plaintive suggestion of where she’s been. Unlike Yaeji’s singles past, it languishes in this unease; the momentum builds but never crests, instead skittering to a halt with nervous, spotlit drums, channeling the lack of resolution in the low, daily thrum of worry.

“Waking Up Down”，磁带的第一首单曲，是yaeji过去的软着陆。巧妙地，它立即部署了几个 Yaeji 主食：涟漪、迷人的合成器介绍；快速而饱满的低音下降；歌词如此悠闲，他们无精打采。但也有摩擦：当她直截了当地唱出日常小成就的索引时——“我起床了/我做饭了/我列了一张清单并核对了”——她的作品让人感觉不对劲。她的声音在不和谐的音调中与合成器发生冲突；鼓感觉很急促，低音很不稳定。很快，韩语的合唱团承认有多少是真正的错误：“这并不容易/没有简单的事情/如果我懒惰/他们都说这是我的错，”她唱得更忧郁了。她早期的壮举与其说是吹嘘自己的能力，不如说是自我肯定，而且不断重复的“down”是对她去过的状态的哀伤暗示。与yaeji单身的过去不同，它在这种不安中萎靡不振；势头不断增强，但从未达到顶峰，而是随着紧张的、聚光灯下的鼓声而停顿下来，在每天低沉的忧虑中引导缺乏决心。

The satisfying gloss of “Waking Up Down” makes it one of the heftiest dance tracks on What We Drew; elsewhere, Yaeji is even more insular. “In the Mirror” is a clubber’s lament amid the sea of bodies, accepted but alone; by the chorus, she sounds like she’s one tipple shy of following Sia aboard a chandelier. “Why doesn’t it feel the same when I’m in the air/When I look in the mirror/When I’m not a pair?” she sings dazedly over synths that seep outward like black puddles. “When I Grow Up” sounds like a K-pop anthem after a weekend in a Bushwick gutter; its pared-back, chipper synth beat stutters and feints as Yaeji sings in multiple guises—rapid chattering, wide-eyed lilt—about how she’s been “forgotten” and “exposed to the ones that shouldn’t know.”

“Waking Up Down”令人满意的光泽使其成为 What We Drew 中最沉重的舞曲之一；在其他地方，Yaeji 更加与世隔绝。 “In the Mirror”是夜总会会员在人海中的哀叹，被接受却又是孤独的；在副歌中，她听起来像是在枝形吊灯上跟着 Sia 喝了一点酒。 “为什么当我在空中/当我照镜子时/当我不是一对时感觉不一样？”她在像黑色水坑一样向外渗出的合成器上头晕目眩地唱歌。 “When I Grow Up”听起来像是在 Bushwick 的阴沟里度过了一个周末后的韩国流行歌曲；当 Yaeji 以多种形式演唱时，其精简、清脆的合成器敲击了口吃和假装——快速喋喋不休，睁大眼睛轻快——关于她是如何被“遗忘”和“暴露在那些不应该知道的人面前”。

Elsewhere, What We Drew has a diffused energy befitting of a mixtape—or outtakes, depending on your appetite for circuitous performance art and surreal posse cuts. “The Th1ng” is the former, a meandering spoken-word piece by the London artist Victoria Sin, with a glassy garage beat that nods greatly to FKA twigs’ “Glass & Patron.” “Free Interlude” is the latter and, despite the title, a full-length spasm of a track—a riff on jealousy and neuroses with blips of made-up, Seussian slang. Riding a stormy trap beat, Yaeji has never sounded so afield from pop-house, her voice wrung through processors into a thin, metallic wisp. “My envy/Ripping and biting/Try me and try me,” she raps in Korean, before admitting, “My life is in a weird place.” A series of equally distorted rappers—Lil Fayo, trenchcoat, and Sweet Pea—swoop in like Dadaist motivational speakers: The most insistent, Sweet Pea, proclaims, “I like pink/I like purple/You’re a Shirple.”

在其他地方，What We Drew 具有适合混音带或片段的分散能量，具体取决于您对迂回表演艺术和超现实主义团剪的胃口。 “The Th1ng”是前者，是伦敦艺术家 Victoria Sin 创作的一首曲折的口语作品，带有玻璃般的车库节拍，非常向 FKA twigs 的“Glass & Patron”致敬。 “自由插曲”是后者，尽管有标题，但它是一首完整的曲目痉挛——一首关于嫉妒和神经症的即兴演奏，带有杜撰的苏斯俚语。骑着暴风雨的 trap beat，Yaeji 的声音从未如此远离流行音乐，她的声音通过处理器被拧成细细的金属丝。 “我的嫉妒/撕咬/咬我/试试我再试试我，”她用韩语说唱，然后承认，“我的生活处在一个奇怪的地方。”一系列同样扭曲的说唱歌手——Lil Fayo、trenchcoat 和 Sweet Pea——像达达主义的励志演说家一样突然出现：最坚持的 Sweet Pea 宣称，“我喜欢粉红色/我喜欢紫色/你是 Shirple。”

Some of her friends’ cameos are more elevating, though—and sincerely uplifting. “Money Can’t Buy,” with the rising Bay Area rapper Nappy Nina, is as satisfying as the quiet pleasures it extols: As Yaeji drawls in Korean, all she wants to do is “eat rice and soup” and then, secondly, “be friends with you,” as a rubbery, strutting beat cuts the cuteness with pure ego. On “Spell,” the Tokyo DJ/producer YonYon sings sweetly in Japanese of “you and I, the magic that binds us,” over a house beat that buzzes and flickers like streetlamps before dawn; Yaeji’s tone is brisker but no less awed as she revels in her life of performance, in being embraced in her purest form: “As if I cast a spell/I read out loud my diary/In front of people,” she marvels.

不过，她的一些朋友的客串更令人振奋——而且真诚地令人振奋。湾区新晋说唱歌手 Nappy Nina 演唱的“金钱买不到”，与它所颂扬的安静快乐一样令人满足：Yaeji 用韩语拖着拖沓的声音，她只想“吃米饭喝汤”，然后，其次， “be friends with you”，作为一个有弹性、昂首阔步的节拍，用纯粹的自我削减了可爱。在“Spell”中，东京 DJ/制作人 YonYon 用日语甜美地唱着“你和我，将我们联系在一起的魔法”，伴随着像黎明前街灯一样嗡嗡作响和闪烁的室内节拍； Yaeji 的语气更加轻快，但同样令人敬畏，因为她陶醉于自己的表演生活，以最纯粹的形式被拥抱：“就好像我施了一个咒语/我大声朗读我的日记/在人们面前，”她惊叹道。

But while What We Drew is more internalized than past releases, it is not conflicted; rather, Yaeji finds clarity in vulnerability, in the pendulum swing of her humanity. Crucially, the mixtape doesn’t turn its back on one of Yaeji’s strongest traits as an artist: Her music has always been deeply social, and now it is more gregarious than ever in its gratitude for those around her. Some of the best tracks are valentines to the friends and artists who fill Yaeji’s world—and she has been proactive building scenes, from New York to Seoul—and her appreciation for this community feels all the sweeter balanced with her revelations of struggle. Throughout What We Drew, it is a thrill to hear Yaeji sound so proud and connected to the artistic company she keeps and to the heritage that gives her singing even more eloquence. It is sobering to know her struggles, to hear her persevere through them; hearing her shun easier paths, insistent on sharing her complicated truth, makes the party all the better when it arrives. Through the dark, Yaeji reminds us that our narratives are ours alone.

虽然比过去的版本更加内化，但并不冲突；相反，在脆弱中、yaeji在她人性的摇摆中发现了清晰。至关重要的是，这张混音带并没有背弃 Yaeji 作为艺术家最强烈的特质之一：她的音乐一直具有很强的社交性，现在它比以往任何时候都更加合群，表达对周围人的感激之情。一些最好的曲目是献给充满 Yaeji 世界的朋友和艺术家的情人节礼物——从纽约到首尔，她一直在积极构建场景——她对这个社区的感激与她对奋斗的揭露更加平衡。在 What We Drew 中，听到 Yaeji 听起来如此自豪并与她所拥有的艺术公司以及让她的歌声更加雄辩的传统联系在一起，真是令人激动。了解她的挣扎，听到她坚持不懈，这令人清醒；听到她避开更容易的路径，坚持分享她复杂的真相，让派对到来时变得更好。在黑暗中，yaeji提醒我们，我们的故事只属于我们自己。