The multifaceted painter, singer, songwriter, and producer yeule has been making waves in the alternative scene over the past few years for their diverse palette of styles. On their latest record, Evangelic Girl is a Gun, the genre shapeshifter employs a unique blend of trip hop, shoegaze, and indietronica to fabricate a world of self-immolation. Their work acts like a future fossil, bringing together pieces of aesthetic nostalgia while building something greater than the sum of its parts. Here, Shayna Ssanyu and I got to interview the electronic trailblazer before the start of their tour with fish narc. They will be stopping in Boston on September 9; be sure to buy your tickets!
*femboycat63 has joined the Zoom*
Fin: Okay, so, how are you doing? You’re on tour right now?
yeule: I start tour in three days I believe, yeah.
Shayna: What’s the first location?
yeule: We start off in Atlanta, and, I actually don’t remember the full schedule. I just wake up and I’m in a new city (laughs). But yeah, we start off in Atlanta at least–and then a festival in Raleigh called Hopscotch, then Montreal, then Toronto, Boston, Brooklyn, Washington, Chicago, and westward.
Fin: Aye, Boston.
yeule: I know! Boston’s right there! My fourth show on this tour.
Fin: We saw you there, um two years ago for softscars with SASAMI which was so fire.
yeule: Oh yeah, I love SASAMI, shout out to SASAMI.
Fin: That was an awesome show.
yeule: Thank you.
Fin: Yeah, we’re both–as you could tell from–we’re like fans, *jokingly* or whatever… *Debbie Ryan hair tuck* like we love you and all that.
Shayna: Yeah.
yeule: Thank you!
Fin: So, we’re on behalf of Tufts’ freefrom radio station, so this is really awesome. We play a lot of your music there which is cool.
yeule: Oh, I appreciate that guys. Sorry about the lag, too, um, mining um… There’s just a bunch of stuff going on.
Fin: You’re so good.
Shayna: Okay, so getting started with the first question: Glitch Princess fully embraced the digital self, and softscars felt more like a shoegaze-aided journey of a cyborg trying to feel more human, and Evangelic Girl is a Gun arrives in a darker, more human territory through 90s trip-hop. So how would you say your relationship with technology has evolved over your projects?
yeule: You know, I have always been very open-minded with technology, and being an electronic artist, I feel like as much experimentation as you can get with, you know, with new tech or new styles of you know virtual instrumentation is really cool! But you know it’s like, over the past couple years there’s been a lot of developments with AI, obviously–everyone knows–and I’m sure all these artists are aware of Suno AI, which is… honestly it’s scared me and Ryan a lot–Ryan’s my drummer, as you know. He’s an amazing performance artist as well. He’s basically like my family at this point, so you know we’re always like making music together and we tried out Suno and it was doing all these insane pentatonic scale progressions and, you know, taken out of context like if you remove parts of the song to integrate into and–like sample them–it makes zero sense. But if you hear it as a whole that they dish out as an AI, it’s like yeah the most complex musical theory, in that I’m like, “this is really pivotal for technology,” obviously. Personally, I am not afraid of it, ‘cause I feel like there is something to be said about the authenticity of the artist’s own touch on a particular style of writing. Like if you listen to a specific producer–like let’s yeah give an example, A.G. Cook, you know it’s by A.G. Cook because he uses a classic synthesizer sound that we all know is the “A.G.” synth. So I feel like as of now I’m sort of like nonchalant, but also kind of pessimistic and nihilistic in that if it takes over my job… cool… you know?
Shayna and Fin: Mhm, haha.
yeule: You always have to. I think you kind of know when the music is made by AI at this present moment. My relationship with it is quite distant. I’m not really like opinionated about it, although in the visual arts world, it’s a bit different. You know, I’ve seen a lot of my friends who, you know, I went to art school. A lot of my friends are painters and I’ve seen works being dished out by Midjourney that look eerily similar to my contemporaries. And it just makes them all go off mainstream platforms like Instagram and Facebook and Pinterest. And because they use–you have literally no choice to deactivate the use of your images for AI studying. So a lot of cool artists are off the radar now, which is like, you know… *ballroom finger clapping* as you should. But, yeah, there’s a lot of, you know, cracks inside the system right now. I think it’s not really regulated and it’s very new technology. So if that’s what you mean by my relationship with tech, then that’s how I suppose I feel. But, there’s a lot of other types of tech, like the digital world and cyberspace and friendships made online. That’s another element of digital space. That’s what I think Glitch Princess was mainly about.
Fin: Awesome.
yeule: Yeah, sorry, that was really long.
Shayna: No worries, haha.
Fin: That was an awesome answer. Okay–what do you think–
yeule: Are you guys in a classroom?!
Fin: Ope–we just moved in like literally like two days ago.
Shayna: Yep.
Fin: Because school is starting in like three days.
Shayna: Yeah, we’re at our college like campus center.
yeule: That’s so cute! There’s a blackboard behind you!
Fin: Yeah.
All: *laugh*
yeule: That’s awesome.
Fin: Yeah, haha, we’re going through it right now.
yeule: Well, good luck! Congrats!
Fin: Aww, thank you.
yeule: Yeah.
Fin: What do listeners of Evangelic Girl is a Gun have in their purse?
yeule: Pepper spray. Fake ID. Okay.
Fin: Yeah.
yeule: That thing that you can test if your drink is roofied.
Fin: Oh, the Narcan-type of stuff?
yeule: Yeah. Spare thong. Cigarettes–particularly Marlboro Lights. If you’re real British like me, Rollies, Virginia Slims. Digital camera because you’re a Tumblr ho. Just a power plug and like a power plug and an iPhone charger. That’s it.
Shayna: Real.
yeule: And then lip gloss. Dior lip gloss.
Fin: I’ll have to invest, I’ll be glossed up.
yeule: Yeah, glossed up. And also like a trinket or two. Like perhaps like an etched rock? A leopard print fur peace patch. Loose studs. Eyeliner. A broken Marilyn Manson CD. Um… Two vapes because you need to have like a backup, just in case the other one runs out of battery. And, um… Loose gummy bears. But only the blue ones.
Fin: The blue ones?
yeule: Yeah. That’s kind of rough, but ask me again next week. I can give you like a more, you know, detailed account.
Shayna: That’s good.
Fin: Awesome.
Shayna: Okay. So considering your time in Singapore, London, and touring around the world, what city would Evangelic Girl is a Gun be? Or would it be somewhere more fantastical, like Final Fantasy?
yeule: Like where do I place the album geographically?
Shayna: Yeah.
yeule: London, definitely. It was written mostly in London, but the songs were finished around the world, like in LA, while I was in Seoul, back home when I was in Singapore, because I travel a lot to visit my family and my friends. I was doing a lot of touring at the time. I was touring China as well last year. So, you know, the album was written in London, but it was finished, I guess, remotely while I was touring and doing other projects. But I was really inspired by trip-hop sounds when I was in high school. And then when I learned about the history of it starting in Bristol and its impact on, like, Brit electronica and Brit sampler subculture, like, how hip-hop mixed with a little bit of more dark, sexy avant-garde and more unique vocal stylings of the time. I do think about my time in the UK when I was studying there. You know, now I still live in London part-time, but I’m sort of back and forth a lot between London and LA. So there’s a lot of my identity based around being in London and growing up. There’s a lot of my youth there, my formative years. But yeah, I think a lot of the dark imagery was also really inspired by my studio that I used to have out there. I shared a studio with three other artists who… it wasn’t cheap to get a studio space. So it was this really cold, barren, factory-esque space where we just put partitions in between the corners of the whole studio and we all just lived there together for about two years, yeah. And then I was feeling very sentimental about my time as a painter and as a practicing artist, before I started doing music full-time. And I based album artwork around my old studio. Yeah, I thought it was, you know… it was a beautiful sentiment, quite bittersweet.
Fin: And you said you’re in, like, based in LA half the time?
yeule: Yeah, like, half and half. I would say, like, most of the time I’m in London, though. But, you know, I travel a lot to do sessions and, as you know, I started a production company. It’s a really small independent company. We’re just comprised of, like, six people and they are my core team: Bryan Lamb and Sophia Mork and Yulia Shur. And, you know, just, like, my core creative visual team.
Fin: Yeah, that’s awesome.
yeule: I’m really into making visuals and film and, you know, it’s really, really accessible to have resources out here in LA to make stuff like that. Way cheaper, also, for rental houses compared to London. Like in London you have to get the tube or, like… there’s no freeways. So, like, transporting a massive set design is a nightmare sometimes, you know?
Fin: Yeah, I’m from, like, right under LA, and it’s, like… I don’t even know, like, London…
yeule: Are you from… are you in SoCal?
Fin: Yeah, we’re not right now, but I’m from south Orange County.
yeule: Oh, Orange County? Hell yeah! Let’s go! Coolest people come from down there.
Fin: It’s scary down there
yeule: You know, a lot of dirt bike racing… or motocross racers come from Orange County or that area.
Fin: That’s awesome. My brother has done a lot of, like, dirt bike stuff. Really nice trails out there.
yeule: Yeah, exactly. It’s because of the geography. It’s really awesome.
Fin: Yeah. It’s a… it’s a beautiful place. A lot of the people there are just kind of like… Ooh.
yeule: No, it’s like… it gets kind of racist.
Fin: It does! It’s, like, one of… it’s so crazy because it’s, like, sandwiched in between LA and San Diego.
yeule: Exactly! Yeah.
Fin: Somehow, like, it gets… it’s just, like, attracts…
yeule: I’ve been… I’ve been down there. I’ve been down to OC a couple times with my drummer and, like, the vibe is just totally different. It’s so wild.
Fin: It’s… yeah. Very different.
yeule: But cool lore.
Fin: Awesome. Okay. So… I guess just speaking of places, like, how are you feeling to perform in Boston again? Or, you know… [greater Boston area].
yeule: Yeah I think the venue I’m playing this time is The Sinclair.
Fin: Yeah, it’s an awesome venue.
yeule: Yeah, I don’t know–I think I played a different venue last time.
Shayna: Yeah, Paradise Rock Club.
Fin: Paradise Rock Club, yeah.
yeule: Yeah, I remember the last time I was in Boston it was lovely. You know, usually touring is such a blur, but Boston was one of the cities I remembered really vividly, just because like I had a couple friends out there as well. Just you know, like, online mutuals who came to the show. And I think I think like it’s always nice to see familiar faces of fans. You know because I’m quite interactive with my fans. I love like looking at, meeting them after the show, and just like talking to them. There’s some really cool artists in the crowd who like show me their work you know and I always get really, really inspired, too, by them because they’re like “Yo, look this is my portfolio I’m an artist.”