yunè pinku - Scarlet Lamb

Miles from the sad girl garage of 2022’s ‘Bluff’ and 2023’s ‘Babylon IX’, third EP ‘Scarlet Lamb’ sees Malaysian-Irish producer-songwriter yunè pinku (aka Asha Catherine Nandy) switch stealthily into gothic soft-pop territory. Take ‘Don’t Stop’ as a case in point, its rough-around-the-edges, brooding bedroom production and grungey breakdowns making it a ‘90s supernatural TV show intro by nature; or ‘Half Alive’ and ‘Midnight Oil’, their remnants of EDM torn apart by mystical and ethereal soundscapes. Long-inspired by the experimental boundary pusher Eartheater, the through-line is clear, and here pinku appears to take notes from other innovators in folktronica and alt-pop. ‘Reckless Sensation’, for example, has all the inspired sonic imagery of a Caroline Polachek cut, calling to mind a surreal purgatory akin to ‘Blood And Butter’, while the depressive night-drive melodrama of ‘Believe’ sounds straight from a Cecile Believe or Hyd writing session. Although ‘Scarlet Lamb’ is a gentle stab in the dark - a self-subversion that doesn’t reinvent the wheel - it does make roads in establishing its own dark-pop mythology, and this transformation is a gutsy 180. And on the whole, yunè pinku makes it work; more importantly, she makes it interesting.