Yeule

My name is Nat Ćmiel, I like to be perceived as non-binary or not perceived physically at all. Sometimes, I like existing just as a concept or an enigma. I was born in Singapore in 1997. I always had an inclination towards anything of the sonic medium since I was very young. In my early creative days I started as a painter, and then grew towards crafting soundscapes to echo the dream-like realities I had pretended to live in all the time.
I lived as a hikikomori for a lot of my teenage life, and I think this had impacted a lot of my ideas of self and my deep connection to virtual escapism. I'm not sure what led me to the path I am on now, but I know I am doing something that was told to me in a dream or when I was near death, it was as though an angel told me once, I had to keep creating or my bones would ache still...

I first watched Neon Genesis Evangelion when I was 12 years old. I did not really understand it at the time, so I rewatched the whole series and all three films when I was a bit older, like 16 or 17. I now rewatch it every year just because it's such a great piece of art. I am really glad it got the recognition it deserves as of recent years, though I still think a lot of its concepts are romanticised so much that it's depth becomes hollow.
I reference NGE a lot in my work because it shaped me as a kid, aiding my understanding of psychological trauma through the vivid depictions of the distorted relationships between the characters, my relationship with God through its biblical imagery, and how I connected with the existential caricatures through the children being put in its conceptual circumstances, and me having gone through something similarly helpless before.
My creative process is very volatile. It doesn't have a formula, but it's rather ritualistic. I flow through water, and come out the other side. I would say a lot of my work is a way to help me process or unfold some deeply rooted traumas and tell a story that only exists in my mind until the work comes out. On the other hand, it doesn't always shine [through as] so grim, but comes from a place of pure love experienced so beautifully that it has been shape shifted into a curated sonic piece that carries its energy.

I would say the music that I had been moved by sounded similar in its intentions to the work that I create myself. I pick and choose the sounds I find familiar, like noise and distortion. Like the sounds in my head, sometimes it rings and rings. And so I create it in reality, and when it shakes the room, and it's vibrations are tearing through the walls, the one in my head stops. With prettier sounds, it's more of a sonic painting of an alternate universe where the dewy morning glows on the grassy forest floor [and] has a frequency you can hear. The glass that doesn't shatter shimmers instead as a resonating sine wave the colour of light purple. Maybe even the sound of the blue sky, just before it crumbles into the ground and onto me and you.

I find that loneliness eats away at me when there's silence or no one to witness [what I'm experiencing]. I think it helps a lot of my fans when they can witness me and we can all dive deep into a virtual world where they follow me through the entire gameplay of Final Fantasy VII Remake or create worlds together in Minecraft until our eyes bleed. There's a camaraderie in a way to these acts. It's like making memories with people scattered across the globe. We're all in different parts of the world but it's like we're all getting ice cream and sitting at a park watching the sun set.

I created the cyber dimension Discord back in 2019 when I started streaming, but only in November of 2020 did I really start building the community and creating a virtual space for everyone to feel safe, accepted, and less alone. I gave a lot of my time to building this server, and I did so in order to let people connect through my music and through their interests. I watched the dimension grow, and it has been a really touching journey to get to know all these beautiful people and see them make friendships too. I always see the same usernames pop up and recognise a lot of them and they have always supported my art. The devotion is something that really makes me feel loved, too.

That's a hard one because I do find myself going through periods of depression and need time to recover and restore my energy. I will always be devoted to my art, and the fated path to create what I was meant to create. But there will also be times where the orbit of my world doesn't meet this one, and I find myself so far removed from reality that I am not really here. It does seem really scary, but I know I will always come back, just like how I wrote Glitch Princess. I came out of this empty, hollow shell, and used all of this negative space and turned it into a garden that I now tend to, tenderly. I remind myself that this place I created is my home and I will always be the arbiter to this magic that became real after pretending it was real all this time. You just have to keep the medium safe and remember where the love and hope comes from.

When I was at Central Saint Martins, I deep dived into a lot of installation pieces that incorporated noise soundscapes and dystopian rooms filled with my paintings and collection of teddy bears which I had hoarded since moving to London. It's the same set of bears you see in the Poison Arrow video. I gave most of them away to my friends though, but my favourites are still with me. I would love to incorporate my installations to my live sets or even as exhibited works in the future.
I did a live set at Electrowerkz, back in February of 2020, where I did use one of my installation pieces as the stage setup in collaboration with my best friend Hebe. I am currently working on a hikikomori-esque interactive installation piece for my headlining show at Southbank Centre in March 2022. This is my first time outside of the UAL environment where I will be showcasing one of my installation works and my connection with the digital landscape will be tethered to this environment.

I think we are ever changing, shape-shifting, evolving beings that are never stagnant, never the same at one place in time. Yes, it is crucial to grow, but it's also important to remember where you came from. My music has definitely changed since my self-titled EP, with all the technicalities learned and the experience in the field over these years, there's definitely more intention to the chaos that is in the composition. But ultimately there will always be one crystal in your core. Do not lose yourself. I keep telling myself that in the process..

It's an alternate reality and you get to be whatever you want to be other than you. To some of us, that is a dream. To escape what we are given. Because it's the only thing we can do to make it less dreadful. I'm currently not gaming as I'm writing the next album, but the last games I played were FFVII Remake, Cyberpunk 2077, Maple Story, Minecraft and Overwatch.

The original song for These Days was by Jackson Browne but I first heard Nico's cover of it when I was 14. The poetry in the words and the way Nico delivers the message moved me so much it became one of my favourite songs. It's just in the tone of her voice, her monotonous desperation despite the happy melody. “I've been out walking /I don't do too much talking these days / Please don't confront me with my failures / I had not forgotten them” It moved me to tears every time I played it. I can't play it too often or I'll just be curled up in bed and will forget to eat.

There are a few artists out there who I admire a lot, like Grimes, Bjork, Adrianne Lenker, and Sandy Alex G. It would be so amazing to make something with them, as their work has shifted a part of my soul and ripped my heart open in two in a good way... Especially Adrianne, she is an auteur of heart wrenching songwriting of this generation. And Alex G is so talented that I want to inhale it.
I think my ultimate fantasy is to work with Arca one day as well, cause I really really appreciate her intentionality with the sounds she creates. I feel so connected to her practice as a producer and an artist, and so much respect for her. 

I learned this song on the guitar because my best friend Kin Leonn and I would listen to the album together in quarantine when we were in tier four lockdown in London. It was an album that meant a lot to us and we both would soak up its melancholic sweetness in silence. I played it for him on his birthday and he loved it so much I decided to record it. I played it on the guitar, and then added a couple elements to it on Ableton. It was a bit of a spontaneous recording because it was all in one take.

There are friendly machines around us and they want blood. Dance in the forest with me and play it in reverse, it rings and rings and rings until it glows blue. And then there's the Glitch Princess.