Lafayette, London
The promising Singaporean songwriter and producer exudes her enticing personalities in a theatrical splash at London's Lafayette.
Nat Ćmiel enters the fray of Lafayette dressed directly from the set of a Tim Burton film. Sporting a scantily clad, black leather outfit masking an angelic white dress and crowned with half-black half-white hair, tonight’s act proves enticing before singing a single note.
Known professionally as Yeule, the Singaporean hyperpop singer has elicited a respectable following since dropping her acclaimed sophomore LP last year, Glitch Princess, experimenting within the modern realm of glitch and synth pop. Bolstered by the dexterous likes of Danny L. Harle and Mura Masa on various production duties, the young singer-songwriter/producer has also made an elusive name for herself behind the onstage mystique, akin to that of FKA Twigs or Alice Glass.
In light of the former, sporadic dance movements beseech Yeule’s performance with precise intention, each one airing an expression of emotion - albeit to varying degrees of conviction. Whilst such dancing routines lacked real cohesion throughout the set, the aura of airy vocals continued to wash over the crowd: at one moment comforting and consoling, at another devastatingly dramatic.
None can better depict these two personalities in the overwhelming beauty of ‘Electric’ to the ultimate tear-jerker and showstopper ‘Don’t Be So Hard On Your Own Beauty’. The latter resonated most with the crowd as Yeule held her transfixing gaze with audience members, dancing her set of eyes from one to the next. The result produced a chasm of emotions and teary-eyed fans blinded in adoration of this acoustic singer-songwriter.
Amongst the roughage of genres enacted tonight, not least hyperpop, glitchpop, techno, garage, and acoustic, there deemed definite diamonds - mostly seen from her latest record. Whilst Ćmiel’s performance requires further artistic development to compete with the aforementioned artists, a promising future beckons the talented singer-songwriter with a fast-growing group of equally Tim Burton-esque-looking followers.
7/10
Yeule's latest LP, Glitch Princess, is out now and can be found below.
Photo is courtesy of Karolina Wieloche whose work can be found here.