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Yikii - Crimson Poem 深紅之詩
Cat. Nr: DN020
Format: LP (marbled) / DL
Release Date: October 1st, 2021
Buy / stream: dansenoire.ffm.to/Yikii

Yikii’s Crimson Poem 深紅之詩 exists at the foggy threshold where dreams become nightmares. The Changchun-based Chinese producer has released over 20 albums and mini-albums in her relatively short career, but none of them resonate with the same trembling intensity as this latest LP. “It’s the closest to the colour and atmosphere of the new world I imagined, compared to the previous albums,” says Yikii about the relative completeness of what could be described as her first proper full-length. It takes its cue from a particular interest in linear time, where Yikii asks, "if we can meet with the wonders of this world, will there be a new beginning in the next, or will it all fall apart?"

Crimson Poem 深紅之詩 consistently plays with this tension. There’s the rising dread of a hollow hand drum and other traditional instruments knocking up against each other, before they swell into waves of rising choral patches and layered, off-tune chanting on “Five Layers Of Crimson Snow 五重絳雪”. Then there’s the lonely piano and flute that weaves through its own resonance before exploding into noise and dissonance on “Phantasmagoria! 千燈幻景”. These, along with the drunken waltz to close “Liminal Space 虛與實”, echo the eerie fade of a psychological horror.

Inspired by ambient, gabber and post-club; contemporary composition, avant-pop and nursery rhymes, Crimson Poem 深紅之詩 is Yikii’s most complete manifestation of her ongoing creative focus on “sadness and despair in hazy beauty". It’s the surreal sound of a kind of trance-like, in-between state, a hypnagogia that’s not to be confused with the washy psychedelia of ‘hypnagogic pop’. The music here is instead detailed and intentional, with a dark-light chiaroscuro created by the shadows of a haunted gothic. “They are always one step ahead of others in digging deeper into the spiritual realm,” Yikii explains, citing dark fantasy games like Fatal Frame, Fran Bow, and Little Misfortune as aesthetic inspirations.

Initially intended to be an album of mainly microtonal music and special tunings, Crimson Poem 深紅之詩 has become more of an exercise in world-building rather than straight up music making. There’s an anxious beauty here, where destructive noise meets delicate atmospheres that build and bloom. “I want to create my own world through music and drawings, which exists in a separate time and space, and if I leave, you can still feel my existence through them. From there you can experience a whole world that is alive.”

Mastered by Rashad Becker
Photography by Yikii, design by Niels Wehrspann

@yikii

Crimson Poem 深紅之詩

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Fragmented textures, playful synth lines and detailed sampling.
Delve into woopheadclrms' distinctive sound as they take us through their sonic interpretation of a day at the zoo.

Music by woopheadclrms @woopheadclrms
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Toiret Status is Isamu Yorichika from Yamaguchi, Japan. His new work Otohime is his first vinyl record and his second album on Orange Milk following ◎omaru◎ in 2016. Otohime includes collaborations with Co La, and Yoshitaka Hikawa. He has also released music on the labels Noumenal Loom, Plus 100 Records, Pedicure Records, Wasabi Tapes, and Slagwerk.

Isamu began making music as a drummer for noise and hardcore bands which led to his first solo recordings in 2015. As Toiret Status he has said that he wants to create work resembling the idea of food going through digestion, excretion, and then flushing. This cycle is like the regurgitation of sounds sampled from his daily life: movies, video games, and field recordings. The sources are digested and then flushed back out as a different color.

I watched a Toiret Status performance in Fukuoka Japan in a shrine on top of a sumo ring. The show promoters were serving Japanese BBQ (Yakiniku / Yakitori) with a distinct common Japanese BBQ sauce and Heinz yellow mustard, and it was possibly some of the best food I have ever had. While I was eating I watched Isamu aggressively move around the sumo rink using a nintendo controller as a midi device, triggering intense bursts of sound. The first two steps in his goal - consumption and digestion - were happening to me when I first met him. The dedication Japanese people often display in art was also apparent while watching his performance; it felt like a congealing of "Japanese-ness" with the sumo rink, shrine, food, joyful and absurd music all meshing together in a quick burst.


Isamu’s new Toiret Status record Otohime is named after a fairy tale queen (with magical powers?) who lives undersea and entertains travelers by giving out gifts like jewelry. In Japanese this title could be an apt pun for - sound queen. However, Isamu stated that the title is a wishful statement about how his music would be utilized in the future. When people flush a toilet, he hopes his music might play and become a funny reminder of the Japanese emphasis on politeness and social tact. He likes the idea of turning something awkward into something fun. Toiret Status uses romaji (English letters written in Japanese phonetics to describe a foreign or new idea that is not in the Japanese tradition) for his album title, to hint at a pun and imply the desired function of the music while simultaneously alluding to Japanese folklore - a queen who makes music.

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