Last year, De La issued Cabin in the Sky , their first album since Jolicoeur’s passing in 2023.Yukimi sang on the song “Cruel Summers Bring FIRE LIFE!!,” helping bring some 1980s synth- pop flavor to the group’s candy-colored eclecticism. But it was the whole project, of De La’s surviving members standing tall and triumphant together once more, that touched her soul.“I thought it was a very beautiful album that both brought me to tears, but also made me laugh,” she says.“It felt very De La in the true sense of what they are.They’re a group that has really kept their integrity and artistry in a beautiful way.” Another pivotal track on For You is “Winter Is Not Dead,” a swarming cascade of gothic electronica inspired by the frosty lullaby of Sweden’s forests during the northern country’s prolonged winters. “It’s still beautiful, but it feels very dead,”Yukimi says of the season. Tending to her own allotment—a small plot of land used for growing plants and vegetables—helps Yukimi stay connected with the earth. It was while researching best soil practices that she came across some passages in a book that unexpectedly moved her, creatively. “I loved the description of all the organisms and everything that’s alive and moving under the surface, even though you just put leaves on it and it looks dead, boring, and nothing in bloom,” she explains. “But if you take care of it, well, you get it ready for spring and then for summer. Sometimes, when we as humans are going through something difficult or through times on the surface that look very dull, things are still happening underneath.You’re getting yourself ready for that new season. So that’s what that song is about.” “Winter Is Not Dead”perhaps hints atYukimi’s future odysseys. Little Dragon’s style could feel borderless, pulling from far beyond their Gothenburg origins.Yukimi herself was born in the city to a Japanese father and American mother of Swedish heritage, and she spent some formative years in California. Moving forward, she wants to use her work to further explore her Swedish identity.This includes a new album she’s currently working on that, the singer reveals, will be performed entirely in the Swedish language. “I’m in this state right now [where] I’m more open to trying new things, and Swedish is my second language,” she says. “My parents aren’t [from Sweden], so I don’t have that kind of heritage that some Swedish artists have, but I’m finding it really fun to put myself in a space that feels challenging and new. I feel like if [ For You ] was more red and yellow and warm in a way, with earthy tones, this one is more cold and blue and Swedish. So I’m enjoying that—moving in different expressions and putting myself a bit on the edge.”
“Not really, because it felt like a very organic step for me,” she says. “But it was a big one, because obviously I’ve been in a band for so many years. So it was something that I didn’t really expect. I think I was following my intuition, because it felt like the right thing to do. It was probably that, more than looking at other artists. I really felt like I wanted to feel free and [express myself] with the lyrics and the melodies.” The beauty of making music as Little Dragon, says Yukimi, is that it has always been a pure collaborative process. “It’s not a Little Dragon song or record unless everyone’s put their hands on it,” she insists,“because everyone’s producing and writing. And that’s been such a special kind of synergy that we have between us.” Nevertheless, branching out, she says, was “in the air because everyone was feeling ready to explore not having that collaboration anymore and seeing what happens.” Sure enough, band member Fredrik Wallin has also been making his own solo discoveries under the moniker Funny Weather. And Yukimi didn’t have to go it completely alone: Erik Bodin, Little Dragon’s drummer, left his stamp on For You as a co-writer and co-producer. Yukimi speaks from her home in Gothenburg, a seaport city in the south of Sweden, where she describes herself as living in a “bubble” with music and family. One person allowed to breach those walls, though, was British soul chanteuse Lianne La Havas. Over a single scintillating week of collaboration, the pair penned four songs together, three of which feature on For You , including “Stream of Consciousness,” which includes guest vocals from La Havas herself. Yukimi describes the process as a “situation of vulnerability.” “It’s a very intimate thing because you have to be brave to just throw your ideas out there,” she says.“I feel like I got a lot of inspiration from her and her energy and her way of writing. I love the way she writes lyrics and melodies. I think we were feeding off of each other. My approach is to move very quickly and not think too much, and my interpretation is that she’s more of a thinker. So we kind of balanced each other out in a beautiful way and pushed each other and complemented each other.” There’s the song “Jaxon,” named after one ofYukimi’s two sons and dedicated not just to the child, but his father, who passed away three years ago. “Look up, and you will find an angel’s watching over you,” she sings.“He’s smiling at you proud.” To contribute a verse to the track, Yukimi found a most appropriate collaborator: Pos from De La Soul. The connection goes back to the 2010 Gorillaz album Plastic Beach , on which Little Dragon and De La both appeared.The two acts were among the cabal of musicians invited to take part in the subsequent world tour.“We started out as a huge group of strangers and, in the end, we were like a little family,” saysYukimi.“There were a lot of great people from all different types of genres and worlds of music.” This blossomed into regular collaboration. De La’s Dave “Trugoy the Dove” Jolicoeur co-wrote Little Dragon’s “Pretty Girls,” from their 2015 Nabuma Rubberband LP. The band, in turn, appeared on De La’s 2016 album, And the Anonymous Nobody …
The Wax Poetics x Yukimi Collection goes live in May 2026. Visit Waxpoetics.com to discover more unique items and stories from Wax Poetics Collections.
WaxPoetics 29
( opposite ) Photo by Stefan Andersson, courtesy of Ninja Tune.
Made with FlippingBook - PDF hosting