In most everything Yaeji creates with her singular arm of electronic music, there is a form of meditation within, and maybe because of how cool-headed she has has moved through the current since her coupling of 2017 EPs and 2020′s accidental quarantine mixtape, WHAT WE DREW 우​리​가 그​려​왔​던, we mistook Kathy Yaeji Lee as someone who could merely let any and all bad energy either flow through or bounce off her since the music itself had the capacity to be like water. With A Hammer, her first proper studio full-length, Yaeji strikes with a much different reaction to her surrounding nature, however, as it’s source of energy stems from an anger repressed and now acknowledged fully, be it from her own upbringings, witnessing a rise in an aggression and violence against the Asian community as well as all other hate this world is levying against the marginalized, and working through the trappings of the mind in her adulthood. Though she has not necessarily departed her ability to create immaculately sleek, alien lite house dance movements (”Done [Let’s Get It Done]”, “Happy”,) she – alongside a cross-continental community of collaborators including British producer Loraine James and Baltimore’s Marcus Brown of Nourished by Time – delivers a more physical form of emotional processing manifested in her broadening prism of ambient and electronic tools like the bombastic synth-pop of ”Passed Me By”, traditional composures breaking through future perspectives in ”I’ll Remember For Me, I’ll Remember For You”, and freakier deconstructions of the self on ”With A Hammer” and “Michin”. The mediums through which Yaeji works are evolving, and for that, With A Hammer is more than just a vibes effort. It’s Yaeji’s identity as her art wielded like a weapon, and while still intensely cool to the touch, its journey wields the ability to destroy any and all negative energy starting from within.

Highlights: “For Granted”, “Passed Me By”, “1 Thing to Smash”

Yaeji’s With A Hammer is available now on XL Recordings.

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