Yunyu

We were delighted to catch Yunyu in the Visy Theatre at the Brisbane Powerhouse; a venue small enough for eye contact to add impact and humour throughout the show.

The stage was set for an evening of demented delights. A backlit pumpkin toward the rear of the stage; to the sides were wispy white drapes with projections cast upon them. Adorning other parts of the stage were white ghostly images of Cinderella’s carriage, and a variety of other characters. Characters of which we would hear Yunyu sing about in her modernized retelling of some of the most well-known fairy tales.

Her Royal Madness whet our appetite with some of her earlier songs such as Too Subliminal and Lenore’s Song; reintroducing us to her style, letting us get comfortable before blowing us away with more recent songs from Twisted Tales.

Through state of the art Animation, by New York Times #1 bestselling Manga Artist Queenie Chan, and further visual depictions by The Commonist and Imogen Ross; Yunyu successfully blends her off center style of storytelling with live music. - Spotlight Report

he writing of the music was amazing. Every song was a re-imagining of a classic fairy tale (Twisted Tales, get it?). Yunyu stated pretty early that this wouldn’t be a Disney movie, and she didn’t lie. We heard about 20 songs all up and I was familiar with pretty much all of the original stories.

They were all great examples of modern takes on the genre. Every character had a personality flaw that Yunyu did very well in analysing: Goldilocks is an indecisive airhead who can’t figure out that she is the one with the problem; Dorothy is a cosmonaut lost in space who can’t find her way home; The Match-Stick Girl is a drugged-up youngin’ who can’t seem to get her way out of the back-alley, constantly waiting for the ‘next dream’. Like Yunyu said, none of the stories had happy endings.

The animations in the background were a good idea. They did seem a little repetitive though, as if they only made 30 seconds for each song and looped them, but they added a new dimension to the music and were always relevant to the song. It wasn’t like at a concert where there’s something playing in the background to appease the eye, it was a genuine part of the show and added to it as a whole. - Critical Mass

The whole set-up is unique: the opening in the show urges those in attendance to take out their phones and scan the QR codes on our tickets. Finally, after the lengthy intro, the band took to the stage and Yunyu made her presence known to all. Her cute, almost pixie-like look belied a sinister undertone, as her often macabre banter showed her to be quite deranged in her influences for her style. As she herself mentioned, ‘everyone who’s alive is a bit strange’. What amazed me was her ability to act as though she was absolutely out of her mind, and yet keep the (criminally) small crowd entertained and laughing at her nuances and strange tales that never seemed to go where you’d think they would. Never before have I ever seen someone make the theme of death and despair seem so… Entertaining. - Press Record

YUNYU
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Performance tonight was at most,impressive on occasion.
That was until the blessing of a truly original artist YUNYU lifted the nights performance level to new boundaries of self expression.YUNYU spun her extraordinary web of enticingly brilliant creation into a room clearly fallen prey to her seductive prowess and demented cuteness.YUNYU posesses a captivatingly brilliant projection in her vocal technique.She has been likened to a number of well known underworld divas yet none of which there is evidence to predate her new sound and anarchist approach to the usual vocal boundaries of commercial voice


YUNYU is quite simply not to be missed by any self respecting creature of the night.Her exquisite bite can be felt at
http://www.yunyu.com.au/home.htm
- Hitstate Australia's Best Music Website

"Finely crafted pop songs that sit somewhere between Bjork, Britney Spears and a disturbing Japanese Anime." --Xpress, Rock Xtras - Xpress

In Chinese, “yunyu” means “beautiful rhythms”. When the mother of Australian popstress Yunyu gave her that symbolic name, she must have had musical intentions towards her child’s future. This was further clarified when she sent Yunyu to a “classical music nazi concentration camp” (as Yunyu puts it) at the age of two, something that Yunyu considers both a curse and a blessing. Is it just me, or does Yunyu look a bit out of place at a children’s birthday party? Her music is not exacty birthday music, but a diverse array of several influences ranging from industrial gothic punk to cute Asian pop music. While those two genres seem to be the exact opposite of one another, Yunyu’s songs vary in style but still maintain to construct a manageable flow on her debut album, Spiked Soul. Yunyu is as interesting and unique as her music. She can communicate in over five languages and in her free time enjoys visiting psychosis support forums and studying murder cases. And you thought indie music was an odd obsession.

Indeed, Yunyu makes some beautiful music, ranging from the chilling gothic ballad of ‘Lenore’s Song’ to the energetic ‘You Are Expendable’, which actually borrows several components of Japanese pop, a genre that Yunyu openly admires. Yunyu also possesses a vocal Björk influence, moreso emotionally than physically empowering, giving another example of a small young woman who has voice that often seems larger than life. Yunyu does not have the same vocal strength as Björk (who does?), but she certainly has a similar undying passion. While her dark musical songwriting is complementary and diverse, the thing that strikes me most about Yunyu is her deep and thoughtful lyrical content. In the fan favorite ‘Lenore’s Song’, Yunyu addresses it as a reply letter to Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Raven”. Another one of Yunyu’s odd interests is writing love letters to dead people, something she considers romantic. “When I see you laughing with them, have my secrets become jokes?” Yunyu pleads, “when I see you lunching with them, is my flesh the meat they poke?” Unsurprisingly odd but deep from someone with such an innocent and sweet voice. I found Spiked Soul about two weeks too late, as it would have made the perfect Halloween soundtrack. From her use of eerie synths in ‘Lenore’s Song’ to the aggressive guitar riffs in ‘A Prayer’, all with engaging vocal melodies, Yunyu’s debut is something of originality and pure talent.

http://obscuresound.com/?p=466 - Obscure Sound

Trip hop fans take note. Former Triple J Unearthed winner for Western Australia and child prodigy Yunyu (pronounced ‘yoon-yoo’) is set for big things. The Singapore-born and now NSW-based musician has just released her debut album Spiked Soul, which has quickly picked up radio rotation around Australia. The singer’s name means ‘beautiful rhythms’ and, like Bjork or Lamb, her songs throb with the contrast between cute melodies and wicked lyrics.

Yunyu won the Western Australian leg of Triple J’s Unearthed competition in 2002. She played her first gig a year later and has spent the past few years touring and preparing to record the debut album. Several of the songs were included on an earlier EP that gained high rotation airplay on Triple J and top 10 college chart action in Canada.

The new album took shape under the influence of producer Rob Agostini, who brought out the spectral melodies and sound of the album. However, many of the elements were set from the classically trained musician’s first EP: heavily layered piano melodies, electronic production and that hint of a Celtic lilt to the voice.

The fabulous videos for both singles are available from Yunyu’s website. The clip for Lenore’s Song was stripped back to its bare bones, with some of the crew behind Superman Returns and Lord of the Rings stapling together 16,000 digital photos instead of using a video camera.

Yunyu’s debut album Spiked Soul is now available on CDBABY and Earshot Music, as well as Itunes.

Yunyu
Yunyu on myspace - Nokia Music CMS