softscars
Post-humanism was a passion and a coping mechanism on yeule’s breakthrough album, 2022’s *Glitch Princess*, art-pop that escaped into the simulation and drew raw emotion from its artifice. Their third full-length finds the shape-shifting musician regaining their bearings as a human being, and trading short-circuiting electronica for the fuzzy sounds of shoegaze and ‘90s alt-rock. The effect is that of an AI yearning to be flesh and blood: “If only I could be/Real enough to love,” they sing over downcast guitar chords on “ghosts” as their voice glitches into decay. On the bleakly gorgeous “software update,” yeule fantasizes about a lover downloading their mind after their body is gone, over a swelling, reverberating wall of sound. There’s a tactile quality to the album’s digital processing reminiscent of ‘90s Warp Records staples like Boards of Canada or Aphex Twin, shot through with the melancholy that accompanies nostalgia for a time that’s long gone and barely remembered.
On their riveting new album, the 25-year-old singer-songwriter-producer shifts from future-shocked electronic pop to a super-sized emotional bloodletting steeped in ’90s alternative.
If Glitch Princess saw yeule trying to travel to alternative realities, then softscars is their attempt at looking inward – to remember what was instead of coping through detachment.
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Ethereal tendencies give way to screamo and shredding on the Singaporean-British songwriter’s third album
softscars by yeule album review: finally, an AI-influenced album we can get behind – this is a genuinely compelling piece of work
With their third studio album, ‘Softscars,’ Yeule expands, refines, and masters their creative vision. Read our review.
In weird ways, Yeule's 'softscars' works as a satisfying slice of artful pop for the Anthropocene that oozes catastrophe and captures a real cultural moment.
Yeule - softscars review: Yeule chooses life, sweetens up their sound, and drops pop AOTY for the third time running.