Yaeji has a knack for making tracks that are so obvious in their appeal that you wonder why they haven’t ever been made before. Of course, the particular songs I have in mind are ‘Raingurl’ and, now, ‘booboo’.

It feels like the charm of ‘Raingurl’ has by now worn off a little on most people, including, as ‘booboo’ informs us, Yaeji herself. But looking back (released seven years ago!), it’s hard not to admire it. ‘Raingurl’ is as utilitarian a club song as has dropped in recent memory, uniting New York club kids, mainstream tech-house hand-flappers, and SOPHIE-pilled introverts around the deadpan vocals of a Korean-American newcomer. Unleashed at the height of the lo-fi house wave that enshrined the names Mall Grab, DJ Seinfeld and Ross From Friends on festival lineups ad infinitum, it makes sense that ‘Raingurl’ would capture the zeitgeist: it sounded punchier than everything else around it, yet remained intuitively aligned with the direction of the culture. It doesn’t try too hard; it does what it does well. The song’s component parts are nothing new – the wary chord stabs, the campus-ready hook (“Mother Russia in my cup / and my glasses foggin up”), the tech-house groove so straightforward it sounds like a preset – Yaeji just puts them together in a way that makes sense.

‘booboo’ is the same general flavour with a new genre. It’s like a prototype design of Jersey club, the kind of thing you could imagine the inventor of Jersey club might have played for their producer friends to explain their creation. It’s basic, but it’s back-to-basics. The track’s lurching bass pulses and 808 hits are dry and clean, meanwhile Yaeji monologues an insistent dancefloor come-on: “Come over here, baby / headbanging all night / come over here, baby / find me in the front right”.

Her lyrics are delivered with the clear intent to get you the fuck on the floor: into, as she puts it, that “head locked in, soul-rooted kinda moment”. It’s a little brazen, particularly when she directly interpolates and references ‘Raingurl’ as the kind of banger she’s chasing, but I can’t deny that it’s effective. To those inclined – maybe familiarise yourself with a lyric sheet before Sustain-Release.

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Sam Gollings

22 August 2024