Seoul producer Yetsuby’s music, like that of her duo Salamanda, is a jumble of brightly colored baubles: marbles and beach glass, sequins and gumdrops, all spun into mesmerizingly symmetrical abstractions. You might be momentarily reminded of Hiroshi Yoshimura, Steve Reich, ’90s ambient, and fantastical video-game soundtracks, yet the references float by so gently and swiftly that you’re too swept up in the downy tumult to think too closely about them. But there’s a moment on Yetsuby’s new album 4EVA that’s so uncharacteristically strident, it might make you wonder if someone else’s audio files got mixed in with hers on the way to the mastering engineer.
“SOUNDCLOUD”—a title, a genre, a browser tab?—begins more or less like her most upbeat tracks typically do, with a beat made of balloon squeaks and finger snaps. But the offbeats are punctuated by what might be the trumpeting of a tetchy elephant; an agitated teakettle adds a dash of pandemonium. Egged on by rushing, rolling breakbeats, gruffly squawking cut-up vocals further stoke the frantic mood. It sounds like a Bomb Squad tribute fronted by a harried Dizzee Rascal and recorded on a diet of Pop Rocks and Coke.
The garishness of the sensory overload marks the song as an outlier in Yetsuby’s catalog, but it shares the restlessly inventive spirit found in the rest of her work. In the context of the new album, “SOUNDCLOUD” signals Yetsuby’s refusal to fall back on old patterns. On 4EVA, she’s determined to try new things, even if they risk damaging the veneer of her typically beatific music. It’s her most energetic record yet, heavily informed by contemporary club styles though rarely reducible to any one sound or mood.
The album opens with a fake-out. “s2WINGS s2” begins as a soft explosion of gold dust, filigreed layers of wordless Auto-Tune tracing curlicues atop thrumming chimes and dewdrop synths; it sounds a little bit like Skrillex’s “With You, Friends (Long Drive)” reimagined by beatless techno wiz Barker. It gathers steam as it goes, levels rising as though it’s about to peak in a concussive drop. Instead, having reached some imperceptible zenith, it simply dissolves into a fine spray of acoustic guitar artifacts, like Jim O’Rourke’s Eureka run through an atomizer. “FLY,” which follows, might be a remix of the same sound files: same tempo, same angelic coo, same pointillistic pastel rush. The drums are punchier, the groove more pronounced, but the predominant feeling is an almost overwhelming oxytocin glow, a tidal wave of bliss.
